This Santa is truly Kosher
mainetoday.com
By JOSHUA L. WEINSTEIN, Staff Writer
The business card looks as Christmasy as a business card can look. It's printed in red and green. There's a picture of Santa. But in little green letters -- just above the Web site address -- are the words, "Kosher Kid Enterprises."
You may want to keep your children away from this next part of the article: Santa is a 36-year-old Jewish man who sells kosher hot dogs from a pushcart in the Old Port. At least, that's what he does in the summer. Every December, Perry Mogul is Santa 4 Hire. As his business card boasts, he is a "professional Santa Claus since 1988."
"Didn't you know?" Mogul asks. "Santa Claus is Jewish. Think about it. Who else are you gonna get to work on Christmas?"
Santa Mogul is busy. People started booking him in June. On Wednesday, he did a party at Consumer Credit Counseling Service in South Portland. This Saturday, he has five parties, beginning at 10 a.m. in Lewiston -- and he's happy to travel even farther. "I'm willing to travel all over the world," he says. "Seriously. If somebody is interested and takes care of my expenses, I'll go anywhere. . . . I'm not bragging, but when you meet me, people have said I'm the most authentic and realistic Santa they've ever met."
He is good. He ho-ho-hos like nobody's business. He sings. He dances. He jumps. He swears children in as elves. He sends digital photographs over the Internet. "I tend to play a crowd like a comedian plays a room," he explains.
So how did this all happen? How did he learn to be Santa? It all started when he was 7 years old, and saw a Saddle Up Horsie. "I wanted one of those for Hanukkah, and I asked my parents and they said, 'We'll see,' " he recalls. "I knew my Christian friends had this guy called Santa Claus." So he asked his parents to take him to see Santa at a store. "They said, 'he's not for us,' " Mogul says. "They said no, and that was it."
Of course, it wasn't. Mogul is a tenacious character, and he convinced his older sister to take him to the store. He waited in line, and finally was face-to-face with Santa. Except he told Santa that he wanted a Hanukkah -- not a Christmas -- gift.
Santa couldn't handle it. "He said to me, 'I don't do Hanukkah presents. I only do Christmas presents,' and he blew me off," Mogul, who's still smarting, remembers. "I said, 'I know you don't do Hanukkah, but I thought you would pass on my request to whoever the being is.' " Eighteen years later, Mogul heard that Santa would be at a mall in Boca Raton, Fla., where he lived. He called the mall office and bellowed, "Hhhho-hhho-hhho! This is Santa." The woman at the other end of the phone asked him if he was applying for the job. And she gave it to him.
He's been at it ever since. And every year, he's gotten a bit more elaborate. When he walks into a room, he carries a traditional velvet bag full of toys and a boom box playing, "Here Comes Santa Claus." Always, he remembers the Santa who wouldn't promise him a horsie. He vows not to be such a Santa.
When children tell him that they celebrate Hanukkah, he smiles. "I ask them, 'Do you light the candles and say the bruchas?' " He pronounces the Hebrew word for prayers perfectly. "I reach in my bag and I pull out for him and his sister, I pull out two dreidels (tops)."
He will not, however, promise to bring guns. "We stopped making guns at the North Pole," he says.
Mogul loves being Santa, and he has a list of loyal customers. Gus and Marjorie Barber have hired Mogul every year since 1994. He has watched their grandchildren grow older. "He does enchant the little ones," Marjorie Barber said Wednesday. She remembered one year, when her son was late, and she asked Mogul to wait. "He sat down at our baby grand piano and played Christmas songs," she recalled.
It doesn't come cheap. An hourlong show is $100. "That's the going rate for a professional Santa Claus in New York City," he says. "I checked out what Santas were getting, and based on my 11 years experience, with the costuming and the authenticity. . . . You'd pay twice that amount after you see it." |
