About Us
Book a Santa is a sub-division of Entertainment Australia which is a corporate entertainment supplier based in South East Melbourne, Australia.
For over ten years, we have provided talented and reliable entertainers for live events, celebrations, shopping centres and corporate events all over Australia and New Zealand.
In 2013 we realised the need for a specialised Santa booking service and so we developed Book A Santa.
Book A Santa specialises in Christmas Entertainment, especially providing Santa Claus performers for Shopping Centres/Strips, Corporate parties, Christmas Carols, and private events. Our Santas can even be booked to make a home visit.
With trained Santas in every major town, and most regional areas, Book A Santa is the best network of professional quality Christmas performers for any event. We also offer various Christmas entertainers including Mrs Claus, Aussie Santa, The Grinch, and so much more.
Meet the Team
Michelle is the owner and director of Entertainment Australia, The Face Paint Shop and Book a Santa. With her love of theatre, children’s entertainment and business, Michelle has created this well respected company.
Paul works for The Face Paint Shop and when you call our Melbourne office you will most likely speak to Paul. You may also meet Paul at our training sessions or he may visit you on a job.
Debbie is our much loved warehouse manager. Debbie works hard to maintain our costumes and warehouse stock.
Jairah is our online assistant who sends out confirmation forms and manages most paperwork including your invoices. She isn’t available by phone, but you can speak to her via email or Facebook. Jairah is based in the Philipines and working for Book a Santa supports her family. You can only talk to her online.
Santa Claus & Ethos
If you are reading this, you have already been interviewed and deemed to be suitable to play the role of Santa Claus, congratulations! We know you to be reliable, responsible, good with kids, and understand the importance of Santa.
The Santa Claus Character & Origins
Santa Claus is the ultimate symbol of all that is good. He is a generous loving father figure who brings gifts out of pure good will. He acts as a positive reinforcement as for children who have behaved, but more than that, he is a symbol that everything is going to alright in the world. Historically, he represents both St Nicholas, a generous benefactor for those in need of charity, and the baby Jesus Christ. Santa Claus is a reminder to children that they are safe, loved, and fortunate. There is no more important role to play, and great pride should be taken.
Where did the Jolly Man in the Red Suit come from? The Santa we know has been inspired by a few different figures in the history of different cultures. The earliest one of these is Saint Nicholas the 4th Greek bishop of Myra in Lycia, a province of the Byzantine Anatolia, which is now in Turkey, a long, long way from the blizzards and Ice of North Pole! Nicholas was considered the patron saint of childhood and was famous for his generosity often giving gifts to the poor. In the Western Europe, Saint Nicholas became known as “Sinterklaas”. On December 6 Sinterklaas would hold a great feast, which came to be celebrated in many countries with the giving of gifts. Aided by his helper commonly known as “Black Peter”, the entourage carried gifts, chocolate letters and spice nuts to be handed to the well-behaved children. Peter carried the book that contained notes on every child, and whether they had been good or naughty during the year
As well as the Saint Nicholas, numerous parallels have been drawn between Santa Claus and the figure of Odin, a major god amongst the Germanic peoples. On the native German holiday of Yule, which was celebrated at the same time of year as Christmas now is, Odin would lead a great hunting party through the sky riding an eight-legged horse named Sleipnir. This gave rise to comparisons to Santa Claus’s reindeer. According to some traditions, children would place their boots, filled with carrots, straw, or sugar, near the chimney for Odin’s flying horse, Sleipnir, to eat. Odin would then reward those children for their kindness by replacing Sleipnir’s food with gifts or candy.
The Santa Claus that is more commonly associated with Christmas in America, Britain and Australia is the figure of Father Christmas, who is reflected as the”Ghost of Christmas Present” in Charles Dickens’s festive classic A Christmas Carol, a great genial man who walks through the bustling streets of London on the current Christmas morning, sprinkling the essence of Christmas onto the happy populace. He typified the spirit of good cheer at Christmas, portrayed as a jolly well nourished bearded man dressed in a long, green, fur-lined robe.
Is there really a Santa Claus?
Does Santa really exist? How can one know he is real and not just a myth? In 1897 Manhattan, a little girl called Virginia asked the same question to her father, Dr. Philip O’Hanlon. O’Hanlon suggested to his eight-year-old daughter that she write to the New York Sun, a prominent newspaper at the time, telling her “if you see it in the Sun, it is so?”
On September 21st 1897, Virginias letter appeared in The Sun, accompanied bya reply from the editor.
Dear Editor,
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say that there is no Santa Claus. Papa says “If you see it in the Sun, it is so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia,
Your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds.
All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to our life its highest beauty and joy.
Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus? You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your Papa to hire men to watch all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove?
Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.
Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders that are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, or even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernatural beauty and glory beyond.
Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else as real and abiding.
No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, maybe 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the hearts of children.
Written by Francis P. Church in 1897