(KERO) — With Christmas 10 days away, many families scrambling to visit Santa or one of his helpers are running into the same problem, demand is far outpacing the number of helpers available.
Multiple agencies that recruit Santa's helpers can't bring in enough helpers to keep up with all the requests. They say many of Santa's helpers decided to retire in 2020 to protect their health and now agencies are slowly hiring new ones. However, in-person holiday events are back to pre-pandemic levels and there are just not enough jolly fellows in white beards to go around.
“We had a massive effort on the technology side to both educate Santas on how to use things like Zoom and [Google] Teams, but then also how do you set up an environment, have a camera, and a microphone, and an internet connection that was all good and works for these types of thing?" asked Ed Taylor, founder of the Worldwide Santa Claus Network. "So that was a bit of an issue.”
The founder of the Worldwide Santa Claus Network also said that people didn't feel the same connection with virtual Santa visits, which led to an increase of in-person Santa visits this year.
The focus turns to hiring. Taylor says the best way to get more Santas is to show people how fun it is to become one of Santa's helpers.
