How a ‘Cameo Santa’ built his Christmas-themed living room side hustle [Video]

The first time Eddy Rich dressed up as Santa Claus, he was just doing a neighborly favor.  

It was 1995. His neighbor breathlessly ran down a hill, around a cul-de-sac and to his front door in Tucker, Georgia, to tell him that the Santa she’d hired for a party suddenly canceled, and she had an empty suit to fill, the now-68-year-old recalls.

Putting on the costume and bleaching his long beard made him “feel like a superhero,” he says. Thus began his three-decade side hustle as Santa Claus, beginning at local parties and migrating to personalized video website Cameo — an online marketplace where people can buy personalized video greetings — in 2018.

Last year, he and his son Chris Rich — a 32-year-old property manager who helped establish his dad on the platform, and manages his presence there — made roughly $52,000 from Cameo, including $14,700 during the week of Christmas, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

They’re poised to perform similarly this year: …