David Schneider, 63, has been performing as Santa Claus for over 30 years. He would perform over 150-200 shows every year between November and December but this year he says it was about 15-20 shows.

“I loved every minute of being a Santa, I love doing the children’s hospital, love my special needs groups, I love watching the kids face light up. They hug me, they talk to you, see you, isn’t that nice? its real to them,” says Schneider.

This year has been a challenge for Schneider as the shows were only limited to zoom or are socially distant. He says, he is self-employed and had always kept his house payments ahead about three months but now are just one month ahead. Being self-employed they don’t know what’s going to happen but paying payments ahead helped them have a little bit of cushion. He also drives a Lyft, when he isn’t performing Santa shows to have income coming in.

 Video calls over the internet has helped a lot of people to stay in touch and be connected all over the globe. Everyone has a smart phone and are tech savvy handling variety of apps, it is difficult for elder people, but they have kids at home who help them with it. Mr. Schneider says he’s pretty tech savvy handling technology, it isn’t new to him as doing shows at the children’s hospital for over 10 years he gets to stand by the door, wave to the kids and talk to them through iPads. Mr. Schneider talks to the kids over zoom from his basement, the toy workshop for the kids and they accepted the new way of communication.

“Really the technology dismissed the personal touch but it’s still fun to see the kids and talk to them,” says Mr. Schneider doing shows over zoom.

Mr. Schneider will have the customers send him the list of kids with a little information on their recent activities. The fact that Santa knows who’s their teacher is, who’s the elf on their shelf is, knows they’ve been fighting, or reading would leave them amazed that Santa keeps an eye on them. The kids above 12 no longer believe in Santa but when Mr. Schneider says something about them, they think Santa knows something about me so better be good just to be safe.