Defending Santa

This article is the first in a series about recent turmoil within the professional Santa industry and the efforts made by many to overcome division by passing the test of The Santa Claus Oath.

Celebrate Santa, a for-profit convention sponsor for the professional Santa Claus industry, is fracturing amidst allegations of fraud and mismanagement of funds. “Santa Joe” Moore and his wife, “Mrs. Mary Claus” Moore, owners of the Jolly Old Elf Company and Celebrate Santa, are documented in a web of conflicting stories that have led to mass defections of all Celebrate Santa’s 2009 chairpersons.

At their first annual convention held in Gatlinburg, Tennessee in March 2009 Celebrate Santa sold engraved plaques featuring the “Santa Claus Oath”, promising proceeds from the sales to be donated to a national charity, Santa-America. To date many of the plaques bought and paid for have not been delivered. The vendor supplying the plaques for Celebrate Santa has not been fully paid and Santa-America has seen nothing of the revenue which is estimated to be more than $6000.

Joe Moore is hesitant to discuss the situation on the record. “The issue with the plaques is a private matter between us and the vendor,” Joe Moore said. “We know of a handful of Santas who ordered the plaques and didn’t get them and we have had contact personally with each of them. None of them have a problem with the situation.”

Not so, says Cindy Murdoch of Cascade Engraving, the supplier of the Santa Claus Oath plaques.

“Just last night I shipped a plaque to a Santa who purchased it originally at Celebrate Santa but never received it.” Murdoch said. “He paid me for it again because he said the oath means the world to him and he just had to have it.”

That Santa was David Troutman, a former media committee member for Celebrate Santa who resigned in September 2009. “This is about the Oath to me,” Santa Dave said. “I believe it in it. It articulates everything that is right about being Santa and believing in Santa. That Oath, that plaque and the fact I didn’t get it from people who not only took my money but also took the Oath just makes me ill.”

The Santa Claus Oath is the brainchild of Phil Wenz, a career professional Santa from Illinois who is known and respected within the Santa industry as an expert in professional Santa Claus history. The Oath was written out of frustration with scandals that have plagued the professional Santa industry for several years. “It wasn’t intended to heal as much as it was to make a statement we could all agree upon, that going forward the brotherhood of Santas out there could hold up as a standard.” Wenz said.

Indeed, different associations within the Santa community have embraced it. “We wholeheartedly support the Santa Claus Oath,” said Nick Trolli, president of AORBs, another association of professional Santas. “If one of our members were caught violating the Oath we would most certainly disassociate with them immediately and want nothing more to do with them. We take it that seriously.”

Allen Keeney, another well-known Santa with deep ties to several established groups agreed on the power of the Santa Claus Oath. “Among my circle we all have great respect for the Santa Claus Oath, believe in its principles and the control Phil has maintained over it…we all respect and applaud his actions.”

Part of the Santa Oath states: “I belong to a brotherhood and will be supportive, honest and show fellowship to my peers.”

The handling of the plaque sales for charity by Celebrate Santa, in the eyes of many who attended the convention, clearly violates the Oath.

“They presented themselves as non-profit and charity driven,” said another Santa who declined to be identified due to fear of reprisals from individuals associated with Celebrate Santa (and because he has already paid fees for Celebrate Santa 2010). “But for the hundreds of thousands of dollars they collected in fees, from sponsors and product sales – mostly from fellow Santas, by the way – and for them not to deliver what was paid for either to us or to the charity is unspeakably dishonest.”

Several other Santas have come forward to express frustrations. One, W.R. Miller, writes:

“I know of several people who worked their tail off at Joe’s convention, for free, and had to pay their own way out there, had to pay for their own hotel room, and got nothing in return from Joe, not even a thank you.” Miller writes. “The plaques themselves were supposedly all about an altruistic endeavor, the Santa Claus Oath. Which incidentally, from what I understand, the people behind the Santa Oath, refused to take one penny or even charge one penny for anything sold associated with the Oath. All funds pertaining to the Oath were by decree from the Oath board to go to Santa America.”

John Scheuch, President of Santa-America, says Celebrate Santa participated in a number of fundraising efforts on behalf of Santa America at the convention. Photos were taken at the gala and proceeds from that were paid to Santa America by the photographers. A charity auction event was likewise held with half the proceeds going to a local children’s hospital and the other half to Santa America. In all more than $3000 was raised for Santa America at the convention. But checks for those events to Santa America did not go through Celebrate Santa – only money collected for the plaques – money that Scheuch confirms he has not seen.

Mary Moore says the arrangement with Santa America calls for settlement at the end of the year. However, John Scheuch says no such arrangement, to his knowledge, has ever existed.

Moore is also on record of invoking the name of Santa America to the plaque vendor as a reason for not completing payment. On July 17th, Mary Moore told the vendor in an email “Indeed we are waiting for Santa America’s portion of the plaque payment which they assure me will be here shortly”. Santa America denies any involvement in the collection of funds or obligation to the vendor for the plaques.

Over the months, the Moores have delayed or explained away delivery of the plaques and accounting for the funds. Shortly after the convention was over, the Moores committed to deliver the plaques by the end of April. Then on May 6th, Joe Moore posted a note on Clausnet.com, the popular Santa forum online dedicated to professional Santas, indicating that the plaques were “still being worked on”.

By late August, Dave Troutman had nearly given up and emailed the Moores again about it. He was told that the price for the plaques had gone up and that Celebrate Santa was having to re-order while negotiating against the significant price increase. “It dawned on me then that I didn’t even need to respond to them, that I’d never see my plaque and that I was out $100.” Troutman said.

(None of the price increases were true, according to Cascade Engraving).

He was not alone in his frustration.

Phil Wenz, also serving as a Special Projects Chairman at Celebrate Santa, was made aware of the plaque situation in September 2009 while attending a funeral for another Santa who had passed away and had his plaque displayed as part of his memorial. “I was touched to see the Oath there as part of this good man’s life,” Wenz said. “And then sickened when another Santa attending sadly informed me that he had never received his plaque. Once he told his story, I knew we had a red flag about Celebrate Santa.”

So did many others. Some started to contact Cindy Murdoch, as David Troutman did, about their plaques. Some took issue with Cascade Engraving for non-delivery because they were told by the Moore’s that Cascade was at fault. Murdoch felt compelled to alert the community to stop the emails – and to collect the money owed to her.

She wrote a letter to the general Santa community and posted it on Clausnet, where one person immediately dismissed it as a private dispute with Celebrate Santa.

But with money to charity on the line and the Oath at the very center of the controversy the questions about Celebrate Santa have persisted.

“I had to say something,” Murdoch insists. “They represented themselves to me as non-profit, as working for charity. We priced the product less than what we would normally have to charge because we wanted to meet their criteria of what they felt Santas could afford and would pay that would still leave something for Santa America. We were never going to make any money on this deal and we never wanted to. But I’m not about to take a bath and stiff a charity at the same time and have my name associated with it, even in a remote way. I believed their Oath, too.”

For those attending Celebrate Santa in 2009, the Oath was a front and center component of the whole affair including an opening ceremony where en masse Santas stood and took the Oath together.

“That put tears in my eyes and gave me great hope“ Santa David Troutman says. “We are, as Santas, charged not only with giving but being all that St. Nicholas was and is. It is how we honor him and all that he did. The Oath means everything to anyone who puts on the suit.”

In our next article in this series: What Joe Moore Really Thinks of the Santa Claus Oath