Dan Slipetsky, ’92CHEP/PhD, has been a teacher all his life, but to believers in the magic of Christmas, he’s Santa Claus.

It’s easy to see why. This 260-pound, 5-foot-10-inch, open-faced, twinkling-eyed gentleman with thick white hair and snow-white beard and mustache is a dead ringer for the legendary bearer of yuletide gifts.

That resemblance and his retirement from teaching after 31 years became the impetus for Santa Baby, a seasonal business in which Slipetsky, aka Kris Kringle, is the only product.

His advertising literature reads, “I am available for photo shoots, commercials, modeling, conventions, presentations, parties and motivational talks.”

Slipetsky knows something about motivating people, because he says that’s what he did for most of his adult life as a Delaware high school marketing teacher, along with part-time teaching positions at the state departments of Elections and Labor, Goldey-Beacom College, Delaware Technical and Community College, the Annenberg Foundation and Delaware State University.

But, he says his most rewarding teaching experience came in the last seven years of his career when he was part of the James Groves Adult High School Program at the Delaware Correctional Center in Smyrna. He taught inmates from 18 to 60 years old.

“That was the best teaching job I ever had. The students really wanted to learn. They were prepared, had good attitudes, allowed me to teach and worked very hard. They’d even get upset if I wasn’t there one day.”

In 2004, Slipetsky retired from teaching.

“For most of my life, I was short-haired and clean shaven, then I decided to grow a beard. I passed a mirror one day and said, ‘Oh my God, I look just like Santa.’ It was like it was someone else in the mirror.” In 1997, he contacted a photo studio that specialized in Santa pictures, and they hired him. The next day he was at a mall sitting in a Santa chair asking people what they wanted for Christmas.

He’s been playing Santa ever since.

In fact, last December, he defended the existence of his alter ego in a re-enactment of the court scene from the movie Miracle on 34th Street before the Delaware Supreme Court with Delaware judges, lawyers and business people in supporting roles.

Slipetsky says you’d be amazed at who wants their pictures taken with Santa.

“Once I had 15 sailors squeeze in around me. Another time, a girls’ high school swim team came to have a picture taken with Santa. Seven or eight girls surrounded me and began taking off their clothes; well, I panicked until I realized they had their swimsuits on underneath. When I did pet pictures for a local veterinarian, one person brought three cats. One of them didn’t believe in Santa because he scratched and bit and gave me a really hard time before we got the picture.”

But, the photo that Slipetsky remembers “every year” was the one of him with Emily. The 8-year-old girl had cancer, and the chemotherapy treatments had caused her face to swell. “She didn’t think Santa would be able to recognize her. So, I spent some time with her. I told her ‘When you have pain, just think of me and Rudolph, ’cause we’ll be thinking of you.’” The next year, he received a note saying that Emily wouldn’t be visiting him again, but that the time he spent with her the year before had made her very happy.

Slipetsky says he enjoys running an independent Santa service [www.santababy.org] because he can book a variety of venues rather than be tied down to a mall for 10 hours a day. And, whenever he needs a little encouragement from his peers, he attends meetings of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas, an international organization currently listing almost 600 “real bearded” gentlemen who are dedicated to the joy of being Santa. When he’s at home with family and friends, Slipetsky works with stained glass, gardens, reads, travels and does tai chi. His wife, Shirley Ann Lockhart-Slipetsky, is the business manager for the Veterinarian Specialty Center of Delaware. His son, Daniel Slipetsky Jr., AS ’96, is a jazz pianist and tuba player who was a member of UD’s Marching Band, and his daughter, Apryl Marie Neuhauser, is a food service specialist.

—Barbara Garrison