Being a Shopping Mall Santa

Day one ended and upon checking in with mall administration I was informed that they had found someone who was willing to wear the cheap plastic leggings and that this person would be the new mall Santa starting the following day.

Imagine the disappointment and devastation I felt simply because I had refused to wear some stupid, cheap torn plastic leggings. I had been deposed as a Shopping Mall Santa. Before Friday was done, I received a phone call from mall administration and was asked if I would consider returning to be the mall Santa starting the following day and that “Yes, it would be fine if Santa wore his big black Santa workboots.”

So now I was back on and faced the task that lay ahead of me with renewed enthusiasm and vigour.

Day-after-day for about a month Santa was busy with “Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas” and handing out special treats and candy canes to youngsters from newborn to senior seniors. But my favourite visitors were my very own children who showed up and we got a family picture together, my wife, our daughter and our infant son…a treasured family heirloom!

Several were disappointed when Santa had to leave the building early on Christmas Eve to get back to the North Pole to supervise the final packing and loading of the “big” sleigh for his very special ’round the world, annual trip.

The following year, the phone rang, it was mall administration wanting to know if Santa was available again for another year and, of course, he was.

But this time, Santa got dressed in a secluded room at theairport and made his way to a helicopter for a low level flight over the mall parking lot during which time he dropped a large number of numbered ping pong balls. Mall merchants had donated a number of gifts and each gift had a corresponding number and if a customer had a numbered ping pong ball they received that gift. There were several hundred people throughout the mall parking lot as from the helicopter it started raining numbered, bouncing ping pong balls. There was special security and mall dignitaries on hand to welcome Santa as the helicopter touched down briefly to allow Santa to disembark and make his way through the throngs of people to his special spot in the mall for another extended stay.

As Santa approached his Christmas display, he spotted a face he hadn’t seen since the prior Christmas…”Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas and how are you, Mary?”