(CNN) -- Who is Santa -- like, really?

That's the question at the heart of a new documentary, "I Am Santa Claus," which follows the lives of five Santa impersonators beyond the Christmas season.

In the literal sense, the answer the film provides is this: Santa is everyone who can supply the requisite beard and some Christmas cheer.

The Saint Nick stand-ins the filmmakers follow are poor and rich and drunk and fat and kind and gross and sad and sweet. One smells like cookies (it's cologne). One lives in a trailer park in central Michigan. One is a former pro wrestler who used to wear a leather mask and go by the name Mankind as he fake-pummeled Spandex-wearing men on national television.

Oh yeah, and one of them is gay.