Busy Season!

Well, here we are, November 20, 2015.  We are entering my super-busy time of the year!  I mean super busy!

For the past 15 years or so, December has been very busy for me, mostly due to my Gift-Delivery business here in the Philippines.  That business is WowPhilippines.  We deliver things like flowers, chocolates and other types of gifts that somebody might want delivered to a loved one.  As you can imagine, Christmas is one of our most busy seasons of the year, with people sending gifts to their wives, girlfriends and other special people here in the Philippines.  The other busy part of the year is Valentine’s day.  It is hard to say which of those seasons is busiest, because they run about equal.

Starting last year, I had another activity that made my month of December even busier.  It was my first year of being Santa Claus.  Over the previous 13 Decembers or so, I had a LiP Christmas Giveaway, which was sort of like playing Santa Claus, but last year, I was approached by a business who wanted me to actually be Santa Claus in local Malls and Stores in Davao and really all around Southern Mindanao.  I did it, and had a lot of fun in doing so.

When I did the Santa Claus thing last year, I saw that there was a lot of demand and also a lot of potential in doing it, which kind of surprised me.  The potential that I saw was so big that this year I decided to venture out on my own and do Santa myself instead of with the company that I worked for last year.  So, back around August, I started making preparations.

Beard

Last year, I wore a fake beard, because I did not know until mid-November that I would be Santa Claus.  Since I decided to do it on my own this year, I wanted to have a real beard.  So, around mid-August I decided to start growing the beard.  I had never grown a beard in my life, oh I had stubble from going a few days without shaving, but nothing more than that.  I was not even certain that I could grow a beard, since I had never tried. But, I wanted to do it, so I gave it a shot.

I was pretty surprised and happy that I was able to grow a pretty full beard.  I was very happy with how full it grew in, but I would like it to be a little longer next year, so I will start growing it earlier next year than I did this year.

Take a look at some of the pictures of the various stages of my beard grown below.

I am sure you noticed that I bleached my beard and my hair.  If you are going to be Santa Claus you can’t have a reddish brown beard or hair, right? 🙂  I bleached my hair on November 2 to get ready for my first two gigs – November 6 and 7, which Feyma wrote about last week.

Lots of Gigs

As things are shaping up now, it is looking like I will have a very full December.  Pretty much the second half of the month is booked fairly solid.  Some of those days I have two gigs per day, at different malls.

I am the official Santa of three different SM Malls:  Ecoland and Lanang in Davao City, and also at SM City General Santos.  I am also the official Santa Claus of NCCC Malls.  We are still negotiating with two other Mall chains, some hotels and other businesses.  Certainly a lot more places than I visited in my inaugural Santa Season in 2014.  I am excited about it and looking forward to it.  It is a lot of fun and also very personally rewarding seeing the smiles on children’s faces, especially when it is the first time many of them have ever seen a white Santa Claus.

General Santos

A look at my gig on November 7 in General Santos City, this was the Christmas Kickoff at SM, and we had a lot of fun!

It was a great weekend in GenSan, and I will be back there from December 21-24 for 4 more appearances!  If any of you readers are in GenSan, come to SM and see me!

Visit our website, Santa in the Philippines or our Facebook Page.