A virtual Santa Claus in Spain is saving Christmas by visiting children in their homes with personified messages of hope and love.
Hector Fuentes is the man behind the trending virtual Papa Noel (Spanish for Father Christmas or Santa Claus). And he and his team are keeping the Christmas spirit up among children.
Since the coronavirus pandemic limits physical interaction, children may miss out on a lot of Christmas festivities. But if it depends on Fuentes, they will still be able to get a session with Santa Claus.
To send video messages to children, this Father Christmas converted an old shipping container in Leganes, south of Madrid, into a production studio.
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He works with his son Andres, who handles the camera and his colleague Pilar Carrion, who dresses as an elk. Parents send their children’s Christmas letters to Fuentes via his social media page and then he and his team record a reply for each child.
Fuentes is garbed in the traditional red suit, white beard and Christmas hat when replying to the children. Speaking about the decision to go virtual to save Christmas, Carrion said;
“When the pandemic arrived all the events we had were cancelled…we had to start from scratch to reinvent ourselves.”
Hector Fuentes mentioned that they had considered Zoom, Skype and several other new technologies. Eventually, they settled on pre-recorded messages and it is getting quite popular.
