Summer is clearly not Santa’s season. For the third year in a row the off-season behaviors of a clan of professional Santa Clauses is grabbing headlines and causing jaws to drop.
This year, they traveled by cruise ship to Alaska, where they stole headlines everywhere they went — including Skagway, Alaska where this group of Santas posed at a famed brothel museum. Click here to see the image of fully uniformed Santa’s posing with museum employees dressed in period costumes.
The group, being tutored at a “School4Santa” sponsored by the International University of Santa Claus, were supposed to be learning the delicate art of representing Santa Claus and living up to the industry-wide standards set out in the “Santa Claus Oath”.
The schools, led by Santa trainer Tim Connaghan across the United States, teaches professional Santas the history and business of professional Santas.
Over the past several years the industry of professional Santa Claus services has been rocked by scandals ranging from in-fighting and greed within professional Santa organizations to ongoing issues with Santas accused (and in some cases convicted) of predatory crimes against children.
“The good name of Santa Claus needs stanch defenders,” said Jeff Westover, owner of Merry Network, a collective organization of Christmas publications (including this one). “It doesn’t matter where or when you represent Santa. You’re always on stage. The real Santa wouldn’t be caught dead in a place associated with prostitution. Between the gross mischaracterizations of Santa Claus in movies and the media and the negligent and stupid actions of some so-called professional santas we are seeing a continual beating of the good name of Santa Claus. As a parent especially, I wouldn’t dare take my child to sit on the lap of any of these so-called Santa professionals pictured at a brothel museum.”