They like the fun and laughter that comes with it and making people happy; that's why we're here.

If you ask them why they're Santa, most of them will tell you because they enjoyed being a child, so they're going back to that.

They're reliving their childhood.

It's a wonderful thing.

Welcome everyone to the Charles W. Howard 80th anniversary Santa Claus School.

♪ You better watch out ♪

♪ You better not cry ♪

♪ You better not pout ♪

♪ I'm telling you why ♪

♪ Santa Claus ♪

♪ Is coming ♪

♪ To town ♪

My name's Tom Valent.

I'm the Dean of the Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School in Midland, Michigan.

This is the Harvard of Santa schools.

This is the oldest-running Santa Claus school in the world.

It was started by Charlie Howard in 1937.

At Santa Claus school we learn everything from beard keeping to personal hygiene.

What we're gonna do, we're gonna start with the base.

To toy making, to what it feels like to ride on the Polar Express.

To flying the sleigh.

I want us to not be afraid of dance.

Santa has to be healthy.

He's a healthy outdoorsman.

If you're not healthy, you're gonna drift off, you're not gonna pay attention.

It's very important to have all the skills you can to be a great Santa, because the child is gonna remember this visit for the rest year of life.

Ho ho ho!

Merry Christmas!

When Charlie had this school, he had three or four students, in good years, maybe 15 students.

This year, we have 214.

It just grows.

We have Santas of course from almost every state in the United States.

We have around 20 Santas from Canada.

We have three Santas from Denmark, one from Norway, and one from Germany.

There's a real sense of camaraderie in this school.

It's like this large Santa family coming together.

They share stories, they learn from each other.

We want to be Santas to make people happy.

Well when we get together we're making each other happy.

I love it!

Once they leave this school, I hope that each and every Santa and Mrs. Claus goes out and spreads the spirit of Christmas, spreads the love and joy that we have here at this school, and passes it on to all the little children, and all the families.

When you give joy, you get it back two-fold.