Foreign models can also cash in this season, according to Russia's Dashia Pyzhyanova. "Each Christmas and New Year I can get a lot of modeling work. It could be a Victoria's Secret fashion show with a Christmas theme, or some other lingerie brand, or a job as a hostess meeting people at an event, or working at a shopping mall," she says.
"Usually they pay double the normal price, or triple if the event is important for them."

Outside China, foreign Santas can reap much bigger rewards during the holiday period.

MarketWatch puts the figure at anywhere between $5,000 and $15,000 a season, but the 50 or so "official Santas" who hail from Rovaniemi in Lapland can command even higher sums.

Sanna Kortelainen, managing director of the Rovaniemi Tourism Board, says that China increasingly has the appetite and budget to pay for their services.

"Santa Claus has been traveling quite a lot to China lately as Visit Finland (Finnish Tourist Board), Finnair and Visit Rovaniemi, as well as local entrepreneurs, have been very active in marketing operations there," says Kortelainen, who brought one of the official Santas with him to the Scandinavia-focused Radical Design Week in Shanghai in October.

"This will continue in 2014 as Shanghai is a very important market for Finland and Lapland."