Santa hire in Dubai: one Santa, eleven four-year-olds
The class rep who said yes to the nursery Christmas party, and everything she learned about booking a Santa.
The message arrived in the class WhatsApp group at 9.12pm, and by 9.14pm Rana had volunteered to organise a Christmas party for eleven four-year-olds.
She was thirty-eight, a single mother, and the class rep for her daughter Mira’s nursery group, which mostly meant forwarding reminders about water bottles. The teacher wanted a small party on the last Thursday before the holidays: a room, some crafts, and Santa. Rana knew nothing about Santa hire in Dubai, except that everyone seemed to have an opinion about it by the end of the week.
This is how she did it, from choosing a venue to vetting a Santa properly to the moment one small boy asked for something nobody could wrap. If you are planning a children’s party this December, everything she learned is in the story, and gathered together at the end.
The first week of October
Yes, before she had finished reading
By the next morning there were forty-one replies in the group. Three mothers wanted a bouncy castle. One father knew a magician. Someone asked whether Santa could arrive on a camel, and was not entirely joking. Rana made a list on the back of a nursery newsletter, crossed most of it out, and wrote three words at the top: small, short, kind.
Four-year-olds, she reasoned, do not need an event. They need somewhere safe and familiar, something to do with their hands, a snack, and a Santa who does not frighten them. Everything else was for the parents. She sent the group a short message saying exactly that, with a date and a time, and turned off notifications for the evening. It was, she said later, the best decision of the whole party.
Mid-October
Choosing a venue for eleven small people
The nursery could not host on a Thursday afternoon, so Rana looked at Christmas party venues: a soft play centre, a café with a private room, and the clubhouse in a parent’s compound. She visited each one with a checklist she had written on her phone. Toilets close by, because four-year-olds give about ninety seconds’ warning. No stairs. Parking for eleven cars at once. A quiet corner where Santa could sit away from the door, so that nobody would be startled by him walking in. Air conditioning that could be turned down, for Santa’s sake.
The soft play centre was too loud, and the café asked for a minimum spend meant for a much larger party. The clubhouse won: a long table, a rug, a corner by the window and a kitchen for the cake. She booked ten in the morning rather than the afternoon. Half the class still napped after lunch, and a tired four-year-old does not meet Santa so much as dissolve in front of him.
Late October
Santa hire in Dubai, properly checked
Rana rang four people who hired out a Santa. She asked each one the same questions, because she had read enough to know that the suit matters less than the man inside it. How long had he been doing it, and could she speak to a school or nursery he had visited last year? Was the beard real, and if not, how good was it? Would he arrive already dressed, so that no child saw Santa getting out of a car in his socks? How long would he stay for eleven children, and would he sit on the floor if a child was nervous?
Two of them answered every question without hesitation. One sent a price and nothing else. One said the children “usually love it”, which was not an answer. She asked the two good ones for references, and called both. A nursery manager in Mirdif said hers had remembered every child’s name. That was the sentence that decided it.
Early November, a video call
The beard on elastic, and the man who asked for names
She asked both Santas for a short video call, in costume if possible. The first appeared in a beard held on with visible elastic, in a room with a television on, and called her “my dear” four times in two minutes. The second was a retired engineer with a white beard of his own, who sat in good light, spoke slowly and quietly, and before she could ask, wanted to know three things: the children’s names, how to pronounce them, and one small fact about each.
“A four-year-old does not care what Santa brings,” he told her. “They care that Santa knows who they are.” He also asked whether any child was frightened of men with beards, whether any had a family that did not celebrate Christmas, and where the parents would stand. Rana booked him on the spot, and paid the deposit that night.
Two weeks before
Letters to Santa, one line each
The teacher had a lovely idea. In class, each child would make a letter to Santa: a drawing, with one sentence written by an adult exactly as the child said it. The letters would go into a red post box in the classroom, and on the day Santa would bring them with him in his sack and read one line from each, out loud, to its author.
Rana collected the box the evening before and, with the teacher’s permission, typed the eleven sentences into a note for Santa so that he could practise. Most were about toys. One asked for “a real dog, a big one, brown”. One said only “I am good now”. And one, from a quiet boy called Sami, said: “Please can my baba come home from the boat.” She read it twice, and forwarded it to Santa with a line of context, and went to bed thinking about it.
Party day, 9.10am
Busy hands before Santa
Rana and two other parents set up the clubhouse before anyone arrived: the long table covered in brown paper, a felt Christmas tree for each child to decorate with glue dots and buttons, a tray of fruit and a plate of plain biscuits, and, in the corner by the window, a single armchair with a blanket over it. No decorations near the armchair. Nothing to trip over.
The crafts were not really about crafts. They were about giving eleven excited children something to do with their hands for half an hour, so that when Santa arrived they would be sitting down and busy rather than running in circles. It worked better than she had hoped. By ten-twenty the table was a mess of felt and buttons and the room was very nearly calm.
10.30am
How to meet Santa when you are four
Santa did not walk in. He rang a small brass bell from the corridor first, so that the children heard him before they saw him, and then came in slowly and sat down in the armchair. Two children burst into tears anyway. One went under the table. Santa did not try to persuade anyone. He said hello to the room, then got down off the chair and sat on the rug, so that he was the same height as the children, and began reading the letters.
He called each child by name and read their line back to them. The dog request got a solemn nod and a promise to “discuss it with your parents”. The child under the table came out by the fourth letter, because she wanted to hear hers. Nobody sat on his lap unless they asked to, and the parents photographed from the side of the room, as agreed. If you are taking your own children to meet Santa this year, our guide to Christmas markets and meeting Santa in Dubai has more on what helps.
10.50am
The letter nobody could wrap
Sami’s letter came last. Santa read it out quietly, and then asked Sami where his baba was. On a boat, Sami said, a big one, far away, for work. Santa nodded as if this was a very ordinary thing to tell Santa, which, in Dubai, it probably is. He said that he knew a lot about people who work far away at Christmas, because his elves did too, and that he could not steer the boat, but he would keep an eye on it, and that Sami should keep a picture ready to show his father when he got home.
He did not promise anything. Rana, standing at the back, had to look at the ceiling for a while. Sami’s mother told her afterwards that his father was due back on the twentieth, and that Sami had been asking every night whether that was before or after Santa. Now, apparently, Santa was in charge of it.
That evening
Forty photographs and a review
By nine that night the class group had forty-three photographs in it, most of them slightly blurred, and a string of thank-you messages that Rana read twice. Santa had stayed thirty-five minutes. Nobody had needed the first-aid kit. The cake had been eaten mostly by the parents.
At bedtime Mira gave her own review. Santa, she said, had a real beard, because she had checked. He knew her name, and the name of her cat. And he had sat on the floor, which meant he was a good one. Rana wrote that down on the back of the same nursery newsletter, under “small, short, kind”, and put it in the drawer for next year.
If you are hiring a Santa in Dubai
Here is what Rana learned, gathered in one place for anyone organising a nursery, school, office or family party this December.
Book in October. The best Santas are booked for December weekends and the last week of term well before November. Fix your date and time first, then call.
Ask for references, and call them. A school or nursery that booked him last year will tell you what matters: whether he was on time, how he spoke to small children, and whether he remembered names.
See him on video first. Five minutes in costume shows you the beard, the suit and, more importantly, the voice. Quiet and slow is what you want for small children.
Give him the names. Send a list of the children’s names, how to say them, and one small detail about each. It turns a visit into a conversation.
Agree the arrangements in writing. He arrives already in costume, he stays for an agreed time (twenty to forty minutes suits a small group), the lap is optional, and parents photograph from the side.
Choose the venue for the children, not the photographs. Toilets nearby, no stairs, a quiet corner for Santa away from the door, and a room you can keep cool.
Plan for tears. Some children will cry or hide, and that is normal. A Santa who sits on the floor and waits does better than one who tries to coax.
Ask about every family in the room. Check whether any child does not celebrate Christmas or is frightened of costumes, and let the teacher or parents decide how they join in.
Let’s sum up
A good children’s Christmas party is small, short and kind. Pick a calm venue and a morning slot, keep hands busy before Santa arrives, and spend your effort on the man in the suit: references, a video call, the children’s names and a clear plan for the nervous ones. Letters to Santa give him something real to say to every child. For more ways to spend December in the city, see our guide to Christmas in Dubai with kids.
Questions about Santa hire in Dubai
October is ideal, particularly for December weekends and the last week of the school term, when every nursery and office wants a visit. Book as soon as your date is fixed, ask for references before paying a deposit, and confirm the arrival time, the length of the visit and the costume in writing.
For young children, choose somewhere calm and familiar over somewhere impressive. Look for toilets close by, no stairs, easy parking, air conditioning you can control and a quiet corner where Santa can sit away from the door. A morning slot avoids nap time for the youngest guests.
For a group of around ten young children, twenty to forty minutes is plenty. That allows a gentle arrival, a minute or two with each child, letters to Santa read aloud and a few photographs. Longer than that and attention drifts. Build the rest of the party around crafts and food.
Whatever they want to say. For pre-schoolers, a drawing plus one sentence written down exactly as the child says it works beautifully. If Santa is visiting in person, send him the letters beforehand so that he can read a line back to each child by name. Our Christmas countdown ideas include a simple way to make letter writing part of December.
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The Setup Collective builds three Christmas rooms in Dubai each season, the Christmas Room, the Christmas Kitchen and Christmas Morning, then photographs families in them. Candidly: nobody gets told to tuck their chin in. Who we are
