(14 Dec 2013) Santa Claus has come to town.
Dozens of times over, as it turns out.
More than 100 St. Nicks attend class at the Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School in Midland, Mich.
The Santas, as well as some Mrs. Clauses, receive instruction on makeup, wardrobe, sign language, reindeer care and communication during the three-day seminar.
Tom Valent is the Santa Claus School Dean:
"It's an honour to graduate from Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School. They can put that on their resume. We're set up as a non profit organisation. We don't screen our Santas. We don't do background checks. We just train them on how to be the best Santa that they can be."
The Howard school bills itself as the longest continuously running Santa Claus school in the world. Tuition is $425 for new students and $395 for returnees.
Now, the Santa army is deployed all over the world, just in time for Christmas.
Paul Headley, from Hamilton, Indiana says:
"It puts a little song in your heart, and a smile on your face and a twinkle in your eye. Talking to these guys, it's overwhelming."
Fred Osther is from Norway. He says : "And you also have to make friends with other Santas that could help you out when you have some problem as a Santa."
Also among the 100-plus Santas is Doug Dodge, from Burlington, Mass.:
"It's an awesome responsibility. You've got to portray your Santa honest, integrity."
Cliff Snider attended the Santa School. He's back in North Carolina now, making his usual rounds, including a recent meet-and-greet in Raleigh.
Sitting in his high-backed Santa chair, Snider had the Moser children on his lap - Landon, 5, and Ava, 2.
Ava stares in amazement at his white moustache and beard, glistening after a light coating of glitter spray that Snider tells kids is frost.
"You can touch it. You want to feel it?" Snider asks the little girl.
"Yeah," she says sticking her right index finger just under his nose, before quickly looking away as her mother, Virginia, laughed.
"It's real, isn't it?" he says, smiling.
Snider has portrayed Santa Claus since 1962, but when he made his first trip to Midland about 30 years later, he was more than a little nervous.
He says : "Tom Valent, the director of the school, told me something I never will forget. Because I told him, I said, 'Tom, I'm not sure I'll measure up to these guys,' and he said, 'Cliff, you remember that when you go back to High Point, North Carolina, you're Santa Claus. You be the very best Santa Claus that you can be there. That's all you have to worry about.' And that's all I've worried about is being the best Santa Claus that I can be."
Some at this year's three-day seminar were first-timers, but quite a few Santas were, as Snider calls them, "returning alumni."
Here is a hotel ballroom the Santas receive a talk from an accountant on best tax practices, because, after all, Santa must report to the Internal Revenue Service.
Other topics included the history of Santa, resume writing and techniques designed to help them nab the perfect Santa gig.
Valent, who is an engineer and executive at a construction company, first came to the nonprofit school as a student in the 1970s, when its annual sessions were held in nearby Bay City.
Charles W. Howard founded the school in 1937. It later moved to Michigan from New York state and has been run since 1987 by Valent and his wife, Holly, in Midland, about 100 miles north of Detroit.
Valent says :
"We can't teach people all there is to know about Santa Claus in this short time. But we can just throw things out there and develop their interest, and they'll be thinking about it for a long time."
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