Like a phoenix, IBRBS (formerly known as the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas) was reborn in December 2012, from the somewhat troubled history of some of the prior Santa groups, with a plan to become the preeminent Santa Community in the World; a leading organization of professional Santas, Mrs Clauses, and supporting wives. Thousands of volunteer hours have been contributed each year to make IBRBS a member-driven, responsive group based on the legends and history of Santa Claus and a guiding set of principles – our goals and tenets.
IBRBS is a 501(c)(7) organization which operates under a set of member-created and approved Bylaws, a flexible Policies and Procedures manual, and a corporate CORE structure to distribute the work amongst our elected Directors, Officers, and Committees. (See IBRBS structure.)
IBRBS provides its members with unique programs and important services detailed elsewhere on this website. These include both Christmas Performer School Scholarships, Educational Scholarships, Santa’s Heart Charitable Recognition Program, discounted and subsidized Background Checks, individual performer’s liability insurance, and more.
IBRBS organizes and sponsors biennial International Santa Celebrations (ISC), inviting members of the worldwide Christmas Performer Community to join us for several days of socialization and education. Our next scheduled event is the ISC 2024 Memphis, to be held on April 25-28, 2024. Both our ISC 2018 Denver and ISC 2022 Atlanta were a big successes, supporting over 400 and 550 members of the greater Christmas community respectively — members and non-members alike.
IBRBS continues to grow its membership, dramatically. We’ve added hundreds of members in each the last several years, reaching a significant milestone in early 2018 — more than 2,000 members. Today, we’re an exciting, vibrant group of Christmas Performers with over 2,200 full members. Our full members are required by our Bylaws to perform as a real-bearded Santa Claus. However, effective 1/1/2021, we introduced our new website design and we now accept qualified Christmas Performers as associate members.
Please browse our website and decide to join IBRBS to make the Santa Community even better!
— Stephen P. Arnold, President/CEO
Questions? Contact Member Services at Membership@IBRBSantas.org