Scrooge to Santa

A change of holiday heart in one hour flat

“Hello. My name is Andy and I was a Rent-a-Santa.”

Hi Andy.

“It has been one week since I was Santa.”

A friend had double booked his Santa gigs over Christmas. He asked for help. I was hesitant. I had never been Santa before. A Viking? A referee? The Situation from “Jersey Shore”?

Sure. But never Mr. Kringle. All those kids and their parents and the costume and …

“$125? One hour?” Sold!

I am not a fan of the holidays. Christmas, Kwanza, Hanukah, Solstice, Festivus — no thanks. Stress increases. Traffic seemingly doubles. People lose their minds. All I want to do is take a relaxing Calgon bath but it always feels like a Silkwood shower. My friend needed a favor and I wanted to go to New York City for Christmas. I figured the $125 could go toward a down payment on a bagel.

He handed off the costume and I arrived at the event.

I stuck my pillow-padded belly out as far as my sciatic nerve would allow and did my best waddle to my seat — although it took me a minute, as I was immediately set upon by children eager to get some one-on-one time with the big guy.

I sat down. It was go time. It was Santa Hour.

Some kids ran at me. Some were handed to me. Others were forcibly shoved in my lap, screaming bloody murder, while their parents took pictures yelling, “Smile, Mordecai!”

But each visit generally broke one of two ways.

The first was best summarized by Abby, a cute but skeptical 8-year-old: “You’re not real,” she said with the glare of a prosecuting attorney, while tugging off my poorly-attached, polyester beard.

“Ho! Ho! Ho! Yes I am little girl! I’m Santa,” said I. 

“No you’re not. You’re a fraud.”

“Abby, I am making a nice list and a naughty list. Which one do you want to be on?”

This gave my accuser pause. It shut down the verbal assault, but her sour gaze remained. She didn’t believe. Nor did many others.

But some of the kids had a total and reverential belief — a look of utter devotion as they approached, like Ewoks toward C3PO.

“Hi Santa!” They were all in. And they knew the procedure.

“I want an X-Box! I want a Nerf guided missile launcher! I WANT I WANT I WANT …”

In a surprisingly touching twist, some didn’t want anything for themselves at all.

“I want my cousins to be able to come see me for Christmas,” whispered one child, afraid that if anyone heard, it would not come true.

“I want my daddy to feel better,” pleaded another while looking at her dad, who was in obvious physical pain.

All those Rent-a-Santa stories prepare you for the shrieking and the terror. They don’t tell you about the beauty and the wide-eyed innocence of a child at Christmas. I wasn’t ready for that — or it has been so long that I had forgotten.

So I decided to embrace Christmas this year. Not for the doofus doing 37 in the left lane or the dullard at the mall yelling at the seasonal clerk for not honoring a dusty coupon from the Eisenhower administration. But because somewhere, in our fair city, there is a kid who believes I’m Santa Claus.

Who am I to ruin that?

Ho! Ho! Ho!