資料來源：http://chinapost.com.tw/guidepost/topics/default.asp?id=3964&next=1&sub=14
Find out where Santa learns the tricks of trade
Where does Santa Claus learn to chortle "Ho, ho, ho!" and listen to the wishes of children all over the world? He goes to Santa school of course.
Each year at the Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School, dozens of prospective St. Nicks come to learn how to be Santa. They are given instruction on the finer points of makeup, costumes, sign language and even reindeer care. Then the Santa army is deployed all over the world, just in time for Christmas.
Cliff Snider was among the 100-plus Santas and Mrs. Clauses who made up this year's class at the school in Midland in the U.S. state of Michigan. He's back in the state of North Carolina now, making his usual rounds, including a recent Christmas event in Raleigh, the state's capital.
Sitting in his tall Santa chair, Snider had two kids on his lap — Landon Moser, 5, and his sister Ava, 2. Ava stared in amazement at his white mustache and beard, glistening after Snider had applied a light coating of glitter spray that he tells kids is frost. "You can touch it. You want to feel it, right?" Snider asked the little girl. "Yeah," she said, sticking her finger just under his nose, before quickly looking away as her mother, Virginia, laughed. "It's real, isn't it?" he said, smiling.
Snider has portrayed Santa Claus since 1962, but when he made his first trip to the Santa school in Midland about 30 years later, he was more than a little nervous. "When I saw all the other Santas there and the Mrs. Clauses, I was sort of overwhelmed by the whole thing," he said. "Tom Valent, the director of the school, told me something that I never will forget. I said to him, 'Tom, I'm not sure that I can measure up to these guys,' and he said, 'Cliff, you remember that when you go back to North Carolina, you are Santa Claus. You be the very best Santa Claus that you can be.'"
Howard, the school's founder, was a Santa with an impressive resume that included being St. Nick at the famous Macy's store in New York City. He opened the school in 1937 after coming across too many other Santas with strange beards, dirty suits and limited knowledge of reindeer. Valent took over the school in 1986 and retains most of Howard's original curriculum, along with modern additions such as how to be a mall Santa in this modern age.
資料來源：http://chinapost.com.tw/guidepost/topics/default.asp?id=3964&next=1&sub=14
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