27/12/2025
Hi all, as many of you know, each Christmas I become a Santa Claus, and I have been lucky enough to become quite good at it, being probably the most popular real beard Santa in North Wales.This year I estimate that I visited with over 2000 children, lol.
Many of you will also know that several years ago I suffered a spinal injury that has left my mobility severely impaired. Before this happened I made home visits for children who, for different reasons, perhaps found the idea of going to see Santa in a busy grotto environment a very daunting prospect.
I also used to make live and pre-recorded video calls to children for the same reasons, to give children who may struggle with a face to face visit, a chance to experience a visit from Santa at the North Pole to the familiar surroundings of their own home, via a phone, laptop, tablet, and maybe mirrored onto their television.
There are several advantages to this.
Firstly, the little one is not being coaxed into a face to face meeting with a large, perhaps quite intimidating, gentleman they've never seen before.
The video visit can be arranged around what is undoubtedly a busy time of year for families, and in the case of pre-recorded visits, can be played to the children at a time convenient to both children and parents.
A video visit is far less stressful to children, and because of that, a far more enjoyable and relaxed affair, with time for your children to get used to talking to Santa if they are initially shy. There is no time limit on the call, which would typically last 10-15 mins, plenty of time for any initial shyness to evaporate.
From a cost point of view a video visit can be a great idea, since the cost of the visit remains the same whether there is one child or several children, which in these days could mean the difference between a child seeing Santa, or not seeing Santa. I would envisage costs to be £14.99 for a pre-recorded visit, or £29.99 for a live visit.
It may seem very early for me to push the video visits, but I found that trying to
interest people in October/November time is difficult, when they have a million other things to consider for Christmas.
So, I'm putting this out there to see what interest there would be. If there are enough expressions of interest for Christmas 2026, I'll contact you again, later in the year.
Best wishes all, and a Merry Christmas.
