Being Santa Claus is a busy job, especially this time of year. Bob Elkin, or ‘Santa Bob’ as he is known to many, is busy year-round. Why you ask? Well, because he is one of the founding members of The Santa Claus Drill Team.
“I first portrayed Santa at my 3- year-old granddaughter’s preschool in 1993 and was hooked,” Elkin said. “After attending a Santa workshop in 2004, I became serious about my role as a professional Santa Claus. In 2006, I attended the first modern-day Santa convention and I started the Palm Tree Santas and have served as president since then. I was one of the founding members of The Santa Claus Drill Team in 2010 and have served as president since 2012.” He was also inducted into the Santa Claus Hall of Fame 2017.
The Santa Claus Drill Team is a public charitable organization. Santa’s Drill Team is not a precision drill team, rather a collection of primarily grizzled old veterans who are Santas and whose mission is to bring honor, sometimes with a little humor, to those who serve, those who have served, along with our local heroes, our first responders and our teachers. “Santa’s Drill Team was started to honor those who serve and those who have served as well as a way for us Santas to give back to the community the other 11 months of the year,” Elkin said.
The drill team’s primary mission lies in performing patriotic presentations in honor of our American Heroes wherever and whenever patriotic Americans may assemble. “Santa’s Drill Team serves as the Honor Guard for the Santa Claus Oath, for the Santa Claus Hall of Fame and for the Knights of St. Nicholas,” Elkin said. “The drill team is called upon to present our special patriotic presentations at almost all the national Santa Conventions.”
Elkin and his drill team would love to get involved with veteran or patriotic events in the Brandon community in the near future. “I love just being able to honor our veterans, and we have added honoring our local heroes, our policemen, our firefighters and our teachers,” Elkin said.
“We are available to entertain at most any type of event. We would love to bring our special show of patriotism to elementary schools.” Unfortunately, Elkin and his Santas are not available during the month of December.
If you would like to learn more about The Santa Claus Drill Team, you can visit our website at www.facebook.com/groups/santasdrillteam or email Elkin at santa@santatb.com. Elkin said you can also “Give Old Kringle a jingle at 230-9254.”
