The Reluctant Santa
written by: Stephen Michael Berberich
These days, people say kids feel entitled.
I say it is nothing new. When I worked as Santa Claus at a shopping mall against my better judgment many years ago, I faced the demands of lots of greedy little monsters.
I’m ashamed to say it didn’t go well. I was a skinny, introverted 19-year-old kid who was flat broke from paying my spring semester tuition for college. That’s when my childhood friend Bruce Schwartz called. “Hey Daniel, hear you need some bread, man. I’ve scored a job for us for the holidays at Landmark Mall in Alexandria, Va.”
“Us? What do you mean us?” I asked.
“Ya gotta help me do this Santa Claus gig, Daniel,” he said flatly. “We will take turns. It will be a blast.”
“Why me?” I pleaded. “I hate dealing with people.”
“Come on buddy, help me out?”
He was certainly not my buddy. Although we were good friends as kids, the adult version of Schwartz was trouble. He was that guy who fast-talked people into risky schemes and never got blamed when things went wrong.
He told the shopping mall manager that he was a career Kindergarten teacher. In truth, Schwartz was an unemployed high school dropout with an alleged asthma condition, which he perpetually used to avoid hard work.
“Listen,” he said, reeling me in, “I’ll work the Friday after Thanksgiving, and scope it out, so you can just slide right in on Saturday.”
Playing Santa can’t be that hard, I thought. I’ll talk to innocent little kids, ‘Ho ho ho’ a lot, and let them idolize me. I was lonely, shy with girls, inexperienced in sex in fact, and needed some cash to live on.
Saturday, as he said, would be my first appearance as Santa, after he covered it on Friday night. I was anticipating a ‘stampede’ of holiday shoppers at the mall. Zillions of kids would be elbowing in to see the big jolly man for all the goodies, raising high anxiety for mommies and daddies.
I woke that cold morning in a rare optimistic mood and psyched myself up. Raindrops froze on the windshield of my rusty 1959 Plymouth Valiant. Yet I was still super pumped up when I arrived at the mall wearing my big, suffocating, woolen, cocoon-like Santa Claus suit. My oversized big black boots slugged through heavy wet sleet from the last space in the parking lot. Lovely white lights on giant wreaths of pine boughs greeted me at each of the four glass entry doors.
Full of joy with my best Santa smile, I was confronted one clunky step inside by a stern old lady in a gray hair bun. “Decided to join us finally, Mr. Schwartz? And now you’re late!” she screamed in my face.
“I am? I mean, I’m not him, that is …” My watch showed 3:55 p.m. Schwartz told me the Santa job starts at four o’clock each evening.
The irate lady waved me on, “The mall manager will tell you where to go, Mr. Schwartz.”
Manager Gus in his 2nd-floor office was smelly, huge, bald, and ugly. I noticed his presence in that order. His big, starched white shirt supported a tiny red bow tie and unbuttoned at his waist. He bellowed, “Where were you last night, Schwartz? We was countin’ on you, bein’ that Kindergarten teacher ‘n all.” Schwartz had been a no-show Friday for Santa’s debut.
I covered for the louse impulsively, “Mr. Schwartz is sick. I’m Daniel, sir.”
“We are very late, Mr. Schwartz, or whatever your name is. Get down there pronto,” Gus screamed as he pointed over my shoulder.
Below Gus’s window, Santa’s Workshop was set up beautifully in the center of a wide aisle of storefronts all glittering with holiday decorations. A white picket fence framed the little gingerbread-colored shop partially covered with ‘snow’ on its red and green roof. Reindeer statues grazed on the fresh green indoor-outdoor carpet inside the fence. Rudolph, smiling with his nose so bright stood upright at the front gate. Many kids with Mom and Dad lined up behind the gate.
I was enchanted for a moment and forgot about Gus until he screamed, “Well?!”
I ran downstairs to Santa’s Workshop, expecting to see cute girls as Santa’s helpers in short red skirts, as Schwartz promised. Instead, I saw a corral of humorless old Santa’s helpers in baggy red suits, hands on hips. The old nags rushed me into Santa’s chair with considerable scorn.
Without delay, they sent in the first wild-eyed kid. Once on my lap, the child handed me a list of 56 toys and games with prices from Toys R Us. He dared that if I was good, his Mommy would give me a ten percent-off coupon. “Make sure you use it?” said the sniffling brat with snot running down his lips.
What should I say to this wise-guy kid? I wondered. Was there training for this job?
I muttered, “Well little, ah little…” His mother mouthed ‘Johnny,’ but I read ‘Charlie.’ I continued, “Well, Charlie, maybe you won’t get all these toys, but …”
Johnny’s high-volume crying lasted a half minute.
His mother grabbed her boy. “Now Johnny, apologize to Santa right now, young man?”
Instead, the kid was not finished with Santa. He faced the dozen or so children in line, took aim, and screamed, “Mommy, Santa said I won’t get any TOeeeS!!” His piercing words deafened my eardrums, practically blew out the cardboard sides of the workshop, shattered the dreams of kids at the mall, bounced off the storefronts, and surely smashed display windows at Toys R Us from Virginia to Hong Kong. It was a masterpiece by a juvenile operatic genius.
Mommy then said to me the worst thing I’d wish to hear, “We’ll be back later, Santa, when he calms down.”
After several more kids had pounced on my lap, I stood to stretch. My beard slipped down to my chest. Santa’s geriatric helpers surrounded me. One bleach-blonde helper named Phyllis came too close to my face with sour pickle breath, “Santa, there are rules, ya know.”
So, there WAS training!
Phyllis explained, “First, Sweetie, each child sits on Santa’s lap for one minute, maximum.”
“What?”
“That’s right, Sweetie. If you don’t stick to the nine-step sales pitch, Mr. Schwartz, then big Gus—see him up there watching us?—will dock your pay.”
“I’m not Schw… oh, never mind. Hit me with the rules, Mrs. Phyllis.”
“It’s Miss Phyllis,” she purred. “First, ask the child for his or her name. Then say, ‘Tell Santa what you want for Christmas.’ Look for me by the camera. Then say, ‘I hear you’ve been good.’ Point to Mommy. Smile. Smash your left foot onto the photo pedal. The idea here is to sell parents pictures of their kids suitable for framing, enlarging, and gift-giving. Get it?”
I got it. The job was a crass bit of commercial trickery to extract fast cash from parents for pictures of their precious kid with Santa. Where was the comfort and joy? Some other time, Santa.
“Now, Sweetie, I’m going to send the next little angel in,” Phyllis said.
Pretty sick of the sweetie crap, I looked closely at her gray and black roots under the blonde. What I didn’t notice yet was the look in her eyes. Miss Phyllis was digging me.
The next day, Schwartz made it to the mall as Santa. He called me at midnight, “Piece of cake, Danny, boy. Hey, it’s great to rip off the stupid parents and whisper outrageous shit to their brats, eh?”
Not for me. I was no match for those kids.
Another evening, little curly-cue Teresa, dressed as Shirley Temple approached. Her father shouted to me, “That is how she dressed on Halloween. Wanted to show Santa. Cute, huh?”
Little Miss Broadway didn’t jump up on my lap, but demanded I dance with her, as Mr. Bojangles, I guess. I had no intention of dancing to ‘Jingle Bell Rock,’ blasting on the PA. Phyllis placed the little girl on my lap. She closely whispered, “No, no, Santa can’t dance.” I thought she touched my ear with her lips. Strange.
Phyllis returned to her station and smiled seductively at me. While raising her eyebrows, she swayed her hips back and forth to the words of a Bing Crosby’s Christmas Carol, ‘Do you see what I see …’ etc.
Little Teresa noticed her and hated not having Santa’s full attention. The child jumped down and kicked me on the shin while shouting, “I’m never coming to see you again. You better deliver my toys, Santa, or else. Right Daddy?”
Her father smiled lovingly and said to me, “Oh, what are ya gonna do with kids today?”
I could think of a thing or two.
Another evening a very obese, 3-year-old boy smashed his entire sticky bun into my fluffy white beard, instantly halting Santa’s cash mill.
Sure, I had spotted the chubby kid at the gate, with the suspect bun in one of his hands and a melting chocolate bar in the other. I suspected a good visit with that cute kid, who had multiple food stains on his Tweety Bird T-shirt.
Phyllis shoved Georgie toward Santa after wiping her hands with a towel. He came running like a crazed fullback galloping for the goal line, my lap. He missed, planting only one chubby leg on me. He fell backward. As I reached for the pudgy one, he grabbed for my neck, smashing the Sticky Bun against my beard.
For 30 minutes, mall workers tried to brush the gook out until it resembled a shredded athletic sock. Meanwhile, a security guard ventured out into the expansive retail haven and miraculously located a new Santa’s beard. He arrived with manager Gus, who leaned into me and said, “Schwartz, you cost me $100 in lost photo profits. It’s coming outta yer wages!”
I felt worse though that some kids, the spoiled-rotten ones, displayed the worst kind of holiday spirit—greedy, selfish, and yes, entitled. Few revered Santa, as I had hoped. I blamed myself. I was ashamed of my poor social skills to make them happy. Were the kids to blame? No, I was. The skinny guy with pillows under a suffocating Santa Claus outfit was shy by nature and growing more and more self-conscious about his poor performance.
I was especially frustrated about one precious child whom I will never forget. Sammy Whipple was almost seven years old and bound to a wheelchair for life. Sammy had cystic fibrosis and a severe speech impediment. Dec. 17 was our busiest of the holiday season and Mrs. Whipple had difficulty wheeling him in to see Santa past the crushing push of customers.
As I picked up another child in line, I was transfixed by Sammy’s face in the crowd. It was a look of wonder that a child half his age shows when finally meeting the great Santa Claus, the God of Toys, from the wondrous and joyous North Pole. I think Mrs. Whipple kept the truth from this child longer than normal. Sammy loved Santa still.
Sammy and Mom didn’t get past the picket fence that day. I stared at the back of Sammy’s beautiful black, curly head of hair as Mommy swiveled his wheelchair around to leave. Sammy managed one last, precious glance back. I waved my white glove. I was crying. How stupid I was to do the Santa job just to make some coin, whereas Phyllis and the other Santa’s helpers always showed compassion and care, even for the greedy kids. I saw her walk Mrs. Whipple and Sammy away from the crowd and, I guessed from their gestures, that Phyllis was consoling them.
As the crowd thinned later that evening, I first noticed that ‘old’ Phyllis’s Santa skirt had been getting shorter as Christmas approached. She caught me staring at her legs. She approached giggling and whispered into my ear, “Daniel, guess what? We live in the same apartments, just two buildings apart. Can you believe that?” I doubted her sanity and worried, My God, she’s going to kiss me. She didn’t. And then I noticed that her hair was all bright blonde. And she wore alluring makeup and a sensual scent.
After another couple of days of ‘Sweetie this’ and ‘Sweetie that,’ glammed up Phyllis managed enough gumption to suggest, more like demand, that we should ride in to work together to save gas money.
A fine idea, I thought without anticipating a downside of her idea, which might be fitting to my Santa misadventure.
One night when Schwartz was Santa Claus, Phyllis decided to stay home and brought over a pizza and a six-pack of Coors beer to my apartment. “I know I shouldn’t, Daniel, but I scored some Coors in Colorado. It’s special, not sold back East, and poor Phyllis got nobody to drink it with, Sweetie.” I stood at the dining room table, nursing only one beer for an hour. She finally got the picture and left.
The following Sunday night, I came home to find Phyllis relaxing on my couch wearing a sexy pink nightgown. She’d been drinking. She said, “I told your landlord, Mr. Crump, I left my car keys on your table. He let me in, okay?”
Judging by the way she was dressed, or I should say, not dressed, old man Crump would have let her through the gates of hell if that’s what she wanted. I feared he had.
We downed a couple of Coors and played Aretha Franklin records loudly, as Phyllis screamed R E S P E C T over and over to the lyrics of Aretha’s hit song of the day. She insisted that I dance for her in my Santa’s suit. She was full of fun, and, well, I needed some. Fun, that is.
When the apartment got hot, I slipped off my Santa jacket to a tank top undershirt. Phyllis cried out drunken instructions, “Pants next, boy,” slapping her hands together, swaying her hips to the tune. She then pulled Santa’s big belt to her as she fell backward onto my couch leaving me standing over her.
I thought I heard a knock on the door as Aretha was belting out her next song at high volume, “Dr. Feelgood.” I yelled at the door, “Who is it?” It sounded like Dad’s voice. “Wait, PLEASE!” I cried out.
He didn’t.
As Dad opened my apartment door, Mom got a full view of a nearly 40-year-old woman in a revealing nightgown, bare legs up to her panties, hands seeming to reach for her son’s crotch.
To her credit, Mom laughed.
Dad, said calmly, “Oh son, we are so sorry.” He tried to pull Mom back out the door. “Dear, I told you the hour was too late.”
Mom pushed back in, “Yeah, your mother thought it would be okay.”
Mom held an expression of fake innocence I had never seen on her. She asked me with a smile. “And who is this, Danny?”
I just stood dumbfounded as I reached for the Santa shirt.
Mom switched in a flash to a stern expression and addressed Phyllis, “I am Daniel’s mother. And you are?”
The next day, Dec. 23, mercifully was to be my last scheduled day as Santa. But I wouldn’t be through with Phyllis’s antics just yet at the mall. She whispered to Santa, “I am leaving early because I want to make up for embarrassing you in front of your mother.” She promised to cook me “a great meal” at her place that night.
I wrestled with mixed feelings as I showered and dressed in my apartment. I walked to her apartment reluctantly. She ambushed me at the door wearing a short leather skirt and a formfitting, thin white sweater. I wanted to leave. She had wine, candles, roasted duck, and lots of flirting waiting eagerly for me. I wanted to leave. But I was gracious and tried to enjoy dinner. She talked of sex and romance. I talked about the Santa job at the mall. I wanted to leave. She asked for help with clearing the table of the dishes and sauntered into the kitchen swaying her hips and laughing. Once again, I wanted to leave. Near her bedroom, she ‘accidentally’ pressed her body against me. I desperately wanted to leave. And I did, without a word. I simply ran out the door, instantly filled with guilt for being so rude.
In the morning, Christmas Eve, she called me at 9 a.m. Her voice was gravelly, “Mr. Gus called. Schwartz is sick. You need to be Santa tonight and I don’t need a ride in!” She slammed down the receiver. No goodbye. No Sweetie.
After I put on my stinkin’ Santa suit and squeezed into my old Plymouth, I spotted Schwartz’s car as I drove past Phyllis’s apartment.
I thought They each used me, I guess. One got me to do half his job for him and the other wanted me for her plaything.
But I would be eternally grateful that they gave me that last evening as the mall’s Santa Claus.
When Sammy Whipple’s mother could not get him to see Santa a week earlier, Phyllis had asked her to bring him back another day. They returned on Christmas Eve, ten minutes after closing. The holiday music at the mall had stopped, and the decorative lights were switched off. I began to take off my scratchy beard for the last time.
“Oh, Santa, … we have one more visitor,” one of Santa’s helpers called to me.
I pulled my beard up and buttoned my jacket again.
Mrs. Whipple lifted Sammy from the wheelchair to my lap where he clung onto my neck for dear life. I don’t remember the exact medical device Sammy asked for in his feeble, stammering voice—some kind of leg and back brace so he could ride horses.
“It’s for therapy,” his mother whispered.
I promised Sammy that I’d get it for him. It didn’t matter what I said. His heart was full. He’d seen and been hugged by the all-loving Santa. I realized that all the selfish misery I had suffered as a reluctant, inadequate Santa was worthwhile because of that one joyful moment. For me and Sammy too, I trust, we each had a very merry Christmas that year.
Now, several decades later, I eagerly accept invitations to play Santa. I enjoy it. I am fat and prosperous—no pillows are necessary. But mostly, I finally got it. That unexpected gift from Sammy Whipple helped me to be a real Santa. Channeling Sammy’s love brings smiles to the eager children facing me as jolly ol’ Santa Claus.
It’s funny how special gifts work at special times of the year.
- The Reluctant Santa - December 13, 2024
