HOLIDAY EMPLOYMENT Natural beards bring job security to Santas

SEATTLE TIMES
SEATTLE -- Here's a job-security strategy you won't hear from any career consultant: Grow a beard. Preferably one as white as snow.
As the holiday shopping season kicks into full gear, the malls are decked with more naturally bearded Santa Clauses. One Seattle holiday-photography business says more than half the 40-plus Santas it has hired for shopping centers this year have real beards, a record of some sort.
Those in the know say parents are increasingly asking for Santas with a more authentic look, who sport natural beards that can't be pulled down by curious tykes. And while real-bearded Santas can be pricier than their faux-bearded counterparts, malls say they're willing to pay more for the added draw.
"It's starting to really become the norm," said Frank Martinez, vice president of operations for Naturally Santa, a 10-year-old Colorado Springs, Colo., company that this year has dispatched some 60 real-bearded Santas across the country.
Martinez said Naturally Santa, founded in 1992, has grown by five to 10 new accounts a year since it was founded in 1992. There's even a national Amalgamated Order of Real-Bearded Santas, which meets once a year in Southern California.
Plenty of Santas still wear costume beards, but some have been dealt lumps of coal. In October, a mall in Pleasanton, Calif., fired the fake-bearded Santa it had employed for the past 16 years and replaced him with a real-bearded St. Nick. Mall officials said they were simply responding to what their customers asked for.