SOME Mall Santas

I was thinking about taking my kids to see Santa today.  I always like to get a picture of them in their good "Christmas clothes."  We'd gone to church today with my parents and the kids were dressed to kill and we were near my favorite mall Santa, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

I realized, though, it was the Sunday before Christmas and the malls would be a zoo.  Ugh.  NO way did I want to even try to get near that!  The kids will be out of school in a couple of days and I can take them then when the lines might be shorter.

I know what you're thinking:  C'mon Jen, really?  You get your kids all dressed up and take them to get their picture taken with Santa?  I thought you were cooler than that.

Sorry to disappoint.  We all have our skeletons in our closet.  I'm not perfect.

You have to understand where I'm coming from, though.  If you could see the way I was raised, you'd know that I am a total slacker and a major disappointment to my mother when it comes to Christmas.

My mother is insane when it comes to Christmas.  I think she has 100 bins of Christmas decorations and paraphernalia.  I don't think I'm exaggerating.  (Correct me if I'm wrong, mom.)

I was raised in a house with at least 6 Christmas trees - all with their own themes, BTW.  Such as: bears, Santas, snowmen, etc.  You get the idea.  Two maybe three Christmas villages on display.  Entire shelves of knick knacks put away so Christmas-themed knick knacks can take their place.  Almost every picture on the walls come down and a Christmas-themed picture takes its place.  She has an entire bin of books dedicated to Christmas stories, Christmas baking, and Christmas traditions to decorate coffee tables and book shelves with.  A collection of Santas that is so large that she's decided to "keep Christmas all year round" so now she leaves some of the Santas out all the time.  (I think she just didn't want to go and buy another bin.)  And the Nativities.  So many Nativities that they have to be seen to be believed.  Be careful with the Nativities though, my brother likes to pose the animals in risque positions and it just drives my mother bat shit.

Christmas is not a day. It is an event and a sport as far as my mother is concerned.  And she aims to win it - this year she started decorating as soon as she turned off our outside lights on Halloween night.  Thanksgiving is dead to her - there are not enough adorable decorations to make it worth her while.

It takes her at least 2 weeks of long days to get all her decorations up.  I always go over there and work with her for a day.  (I'm happy to do it, because she lets me tease her the entire time.)  Most of her decorations, while not my style, are tasteful and cute.  It's just the sheer amount of Christmas stuff that is amazing to me.  If I ever need a White Elephant gift or sweater for an Ugly Christmas Sweater party, I know exactly where to go.

Every year when I'm "fluffing" her tree (not to be confused at all with porn star fluffing) I beg her to let me thin out some of her decorations.  Do you really need a quilted mouse with a Santa hat and holly-patterned apron that hangs on the wall?  What about red and green potholders from 1985 with scorch marks all over them?  Half-assed homemade ornaments I made when I was 12 that look like they were made by a 5 year old?  The bins these things are stored in are worth more than the actual items inside.  It's so hard for her to part with any of them.  She has "memories" of it all.  I get that a lot of the older, beat up stuff has sentimental value to her, but some of this stuff is just crap that needs to be thrown out.  This year, I got her to donate or throw out about 20 items from her menagerie.  It was like an episode of "Intervention," except my daughter was there that day and she took well over half of the cast offs for her Christmas decoration collection!  So now, I have to buy a bin for this shit.

This is why a few traditions like the "nice" Santa picture, the "show tree" and the Annual Christmas Letter has rubbed off on me.  We do share DNA after all.

Growing up, my mother always took my brother and I to get our picture taken with Santa.  It didn't matter how rich or poor my parents were at the time, by God we were budgeting for that Santa picture!

My mother has the usual pictures of me crying on Santa's lap, she and I sitting near Santa and one year I am completely out of the frame and you can only see my arm and my hand holding my Pooh bear on Santa's lap.  These photos were so embarrassing growing up (the hairstyles and the clothes - OMG) and I feel it's only fair that now I get to inflict the same pain and suffering my children.

As my brother and I got older, this tradition still continued.  Looooonnnnng after we'd quit believing in the big guy.  I mean when I was 12 and 13.  Maybe that's why I made my mother such tacky homemade ornaments at this age.  Maybe it was my passive-aggressive way of saying, "You want to dance, lady?  Let's dance.  You want me to sit on some strange guy's lap surrounded by screaming toddlers so you can have your 'memories'?  Fine.  Here's a memory for you: horrible homemade ornaments for your tree made by your precious snowflake's own hand.  Now display them - on the 'show tree'."

That's probably about when we got the "family tree."  Double win for my mom - she got my dad to buy another tree and she got new ornaments for it.  Damn her and her crafty ways!

Back to Santa.  We hated going to see Santa and getting our pictures taken.  We would whine and fuss, but my mother would insist and my father would yell at us to "Do something nice for your mother for once!" and so off we'd go.

I'm a few years older than my brother and once I hit about 13 I was able to convince my mother that she really only needed him.  I also made sure that she noted my age, because I didn't want him to finagle his way out of the Santa picture before he was 13.  I had to endure it for 13 years and so should he!

My mother was devastated that I wouldn't do the picture anymore, but she didn't fight me on it.

I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point before he was 13, my brother was let out of his commitment and my mother has one year where it's her and my dad on Santa's knee.

My first Christmas break home from college, I told my brother it would be funny if we went to the mall and got a picture with Santa.  I didn't have a "real" present for my mom and I thought this could be it.  I told my brother he'd have to split the cost with me if he wanted credit for the present.  (Those photos are expensive and I wasn't going to let him get credit if he didn't cough up the dough.)

We hit the "popular mall" on Christmas Eve and the Santa line was outrageous.  We decided to try the "gross mall" that no one really goes to.  It was a semi-abandoned mall with two anchor stores and about 5 open stores throughout the middle of the mall.  The rest of the storefronts were literally boarded up.  We didn't think any of the uber moms would deign to go to that mall with their precious pumpkins.  We, on the other hand, could care less.

The line was about what we expected - a few exhausted and stressed out moms who were trying to make memories (dammit) without having to wait 6 hours at the good mall.

We got in line and waited our turn.

When we got up to Santa, I took one look at him and I about backed out of the deal.

My mother had never taken us to see the "gross mall" Santa.  My childhood memories of going to see Santa is waiting something like 8 hours (or so it seemed) in a winter wonderland maze on the top floor of Macy's New York City flagship store.  I remember being so hot from all the twinkling lights and having minor panic attacks about locating fire exits, because I was sure those lights would some how short out and cause the place to blaze up.  I can remember having to pee badly and being trapped in the line with no hope of a "chicken exit" for the bathroom.  I can remember happy, borderline maniacal "elves" asking my parents if we had any "special needs" and telling us "The wait's not much longer now.  You're almost to the North Pole!" and then we'd turn the corner and see miles of people still ahead of us.  Liars!  I'm going to pee myself and I'm wearing my nice Christmas outfit!  When we finally got in the little cottage to see Santa, he was a good looking Santa with rosy cheeks, a real beard, a big tummy and a pricey costume.  Macy's hired pros.  Once, the Santa we got could even speak French to our friends who had just moved to the States.  We all believed for another year after that one!

The Santa at the gross mall was nothing like the Macy's Santa.

He was skinny.  Like meth head skinny.  Who hires a skinny Santa?  The gross mall does.

His beard was real, but it was yellow.

His hair was gray, but it was filthy.

His costume was worn out on the thighs where the kids sit and the white fluffy parts were dingy and gray.

He took one look at me and smiled - actually the word is "leered" - and patted this thighs and said something to the effect of, "Have a seat, sugar."

We went up to him and I said, "We're too big to sit down your lap, we'll just sort of perch," I tried to sit on the arm rest of his chair, but I was too short to get up there and keep my feet on the floor (damn you, giant overstuffed chairs), so I sort of crouched and hovered over his scrawny legs, refusing to actually sit down on his cootie-infested pants.  I about puked when I saw he was sporting wood.  "OH God!  Take the picture - quickly!" I yelled.

The picture is a classic.

My brother is laughing like a hyena and I look like I just got my ass pinched by a mall Santa with a boner.

Because I did.

I didn't do anything about it though.  I was all of 18 years old and was not the spitfire I am today.  Instead, I gritted my teeth, paid for my picture (the hell I was going to back for a retake) and decided my mother would never get another Santa picture from me again.

If this had happened today, I would own that mall Santa's meth lab and his trailer home.

The sad irony now is that I am older and bitchier and wouldn't stand for that crap there will never be another time that a gross mall Santa will even want to grab my ass.  And let's face it, I'm so old now that if he did, I'd probably just be flattered.