On Christmas Day, as malls, villages and private homes across Metro Manila fill with noise, lights, and last-minute gift exchanges, Louie Aguinaldo slips into a role he has carried for more than two decades. He puts on the red suit, the beard already his own, and becomes Santa Claus.

For Aguinaldo, a professional photographer by trade, playing Santa is not a seasonal novelty or a side performance. It is work he has returned to steadily since the early 2000s, shaped less by costume and spectacle than by his ease with children and his belief that joy, even fleeting, is worth showing up for.

“I love kids,” he says. “I enjoy playing with kids because then I go into the role of Santa Claus when I’m with them.”

Aguinaldo’s path to Santa was an unplanned one. Before photography became his profession, he studied theology, scripture, and religious education, and spent the mid-1990s giving retreats for Catholic schools. He later moved into concert productions, artist management, and public relations before photography took hold full time. Santa came alongside all of that, at first informally, at school events, orphanages, and small Christmas gatherings.

“At first, it was just playing Santa,” he says. “Then people started giving me a stipend. And then year after year, I just kept getting invited.”

In the early years, those appearances were occasional. One or two events in a season. Over time, as his hair and beard turned whiter and the invitations became more frequent, the role grew more regular. These days, December weekends are often filled.

His costume has evolved with the years. His first Santa suit, made locally in the early 2000s, cost about P6,000, already a considerable expense then. Today, he orders his costumes online, often from Amazon, complete with thick fabric designed for colder climates. This year marked a small but meaningful upgrade.

“This year was the first time I had actual Santa boots,” Aguinaldo says. “Before, it was just covers over black shoes. Now, they’re really Santa boots, with the white fur and everything.”

Still, the costume is secondary. What keeps Aguinaldo returning each Christmas season is the interaction itself, the unscripted play that happens when he is in a room full of children.

“It’s more like, ‘Let’s go, let’s play,’” he says. “I don’t worry about being formal. I’m Santa.”

That play often takes physical form. He pretends to fall asleep mid-program and snores loudly, prompting children to shout and laugh as they try to wake him. He sneezes dramatically. He exaggerates a high-five into a near tumble.

“You really have to love kids when you do this,” he says. “You have to play around, and do adlib.”

Over the years, he has noticed how children have changed. Many are more curious now, more willing to question the mythology surrounding Santa.

“They’re more logical,” Aguinaldo says. “They’ll ask, ‘How did you get here? It’s so hot.’ Or, ‘Where do you get the money to make the toys?’”

He has learned to answer with humor and quick improvisation. When children point out a few dark strands in his beard, he explains that it is still early December and that his hair grows whiter as Christmas Day approaches. When they accuse him outright of not being Santa, he jokes.

“If they say I’m lying, I tell them, ‘I’m not lying. I’m sitting down,’” he says. “Then I stand up. ‘Now I’m standing.’”

Children’s wishes have also changed. Where toys once dominated the list, gadgets now take their place. Phones, tablets, laptops, and gaming consoles are common requests. Still, each season brings moments that linger.

“The saddest one was when a kid told me, ‘Santa, my wish is my daddy comes home,’” Aguinaldo says. Another child wished not for herself, but “for my mom to be happy.”

Those moments stay with him. They also shape how he understands the responsibility of the role.

“You get wishes,” he says. “Some of them are happy. Some of them are like that. You don’t forget them.”

Yet Aguinaldo does not frame the work through sadness. For every heavy wish, there are dozens of small, ordinary joys. Children who hug him and refuse to let go. Kids who are initially shy or afraid of the beard, then slowly warm up. A boy in his neighborhood who asks Santa not for toys, but for cardboard boxes.

“They find joy in the simplest things,” he says. “Unless adults try to stop it, kids will always find joy.”

The work is physically tiring, but the fatigue comes later.

“The tiredness happens after,” Aguinaldo says. “During, you’re energized by the kids.”

On Christmas Day itself, that energy feels amplified. Adults ask for photos as eagerly as children. Strangers point him out in malls even when he is not in costume.

“Sometimes they’ll say, ‘Santa,’ just because they see the beard,” he says, laughing. “My last name is Aguinaldo, so it fits.”

After more than 20 years, Santa has become inseparable from how people see Aguinaldo and how he understands his December work. Even when magazines once asked him for contributor photos in March, he sent images of himself in costume.

“Every day is Christmas Day,” he would say.

On Dec. 25, the line sounds less like a joke than a working belief, shaped by years of listening, playing and showing up for children who, despite everything, still find reasons to be joyful.