what kind of childhood experiences lead a person to grow up and follow the path of professional santa?
not all santas take it seriously, often it's just a job that comes up for a few months every year... but not my santa.
the first few weeks after thanksgiving, we had children arrive in short bursts, with lots of spare time for coffee runs and chats with st.nick. it never ceased to be fascinating, watching a cantankerous old man making snarky comments to us and overheating in a vermillion suit suddenly become that jolly red cheeked man that haddon sundbloom painted into history on every coca cola can in the 1950's. he was santa clause, and bells on the roof, and gingerbread smells, and presents under the tree, and christmas lights, and he was Magnificent. reaching forward to take chubby little hands into his cheap white gloves, i was always humbled as i watched the children see past the worn costume and pretend leather boots to the crinkles at the corner of his wintery blue eyes the looked out over his wire frame glasses perched at the end of his pink nose and see the magic hiding within his earthly body. his ability to guess the children's ages accuratley as they stumbled, giggled, bounced, ran up to him was impeccable.
santa has a similar bizarre effect on grown ups too, coming to us through the touch and go of the masses. old broken men wandering through the mall came to tell my santa about their surgeries and survival, old women came out of the woodwork to flirt, and to sing to him, to make him bear witness to their age and the generations they gave birth to, adults found themselves confessing, touching, laughing to this crotchety old man from colorado.
he's magic.
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