Posts for category ‘Santa Rich’s 2009 Journal’

Santa’s Worst Fear and the Wrap-Up

On Monday morning, IT finally happened. Santa’s only fear (or actually one of several). After 2 and 4/5 seasons as Santa, I was, er, ah, em, christened. Not just dampness upon Santa’s knee, but yellow runny poop!  I understand from some in the know that this one must have been breastfed due to it’s consistency!  I quickly got up and went back to put on the just cleaned suit which was actually waiting for Tuesday, after pet night tonight.

Only yesterday did I hear about the grief the mother of the child got while she, totally mortified and embarrassed, profusely apologizing to the crew, was cleaning up the spill left on the seat I was on. What made this scene worse was that some parents in line (These are adults, no?) were deriding this young woman. If I had been present at the time I would have laughed and told her that this one will now have a life story for her child. She will be able one day to point to her child and proudly say “…and on the first visit with Santa…she pooped on him!” A great story in my mind… Maybe she will come to that, I dearly hope!

I texted out the news of my baptism from my phone to several in my phonebook…. best response from David Reed, and I quote: “If you work for someone long enough, it was bound to happen literally or figuratively.” Also got several funny responses… “Merry Poopmas”..’welcome to the club.” among others…

Santa’s wrap up… coming home this weekend

More languages overheard by Santa: French, Russian, Korean, Ethiopian, Italian.

If averaging 3 minutes per visit, 2 kids/adults per visit (sometimes way more), 9 hour day…hmm…I think I am seeing about 400 kids per day on average.  And how many days? 33 days = 13,200?!  Less my short sundays…so minus 800 equals about 12, 400…and maybe that’s a conservative estimate?!

Observations of Santa….. kids with dry skin on arms and hands… Mason…. a big bunch of Hayden…. Ayden, …a lot of Sophias (my mother’s middle name and my grandmother’s first name)…although sometimes different spellings…Many more multicultural marriages and adoptive parents as well here in Durham, than in Chattanooga…Lots of Chinese children adopted by western parents…must be some contacts here not available readily in Tennessee?

Sensing a change…a little desperation setting in as Christmas day approaches…parents getting tempers getting shorter as the line gets longer…

Another compliment on different radio station from a listener singing praises of the Southpoint Santa…I am humbled by such kind words…

Some contingent of teens from Tennessee…came by just after I had gotten off on Saturday night…disappointed not there…I was wandering the mall actually, but just missed them by 15-20 minutes according to security guard (the Irish one)…Looked around, called Jeff, called Maddie, no, didn’t know of anyone from UUCC…Couldn’t think of who might be? Maybe I will find out later.

3rd graders in the Durham school system go to Chapel Hill to the observatory/planetarium…apparently good field trip! thanks to Diane Davison for the lead on that one. Answers the question about the binoculars and telescopes…also told the cartoon Curious George sometimes includes visits to same…or use of scope and “noculars”!

ORCHIDS: new friends… interesting times… blues… the kids… the adults… ferrets… Mel Melton’s Papa Mojo’s Roadhouse…an extended stay at a different location I didn’t catch a cold! or the flu! (knock on wood)

ONIONS: 30th day yellow poop… pushy parents…long lines…dog days..parents who blame the Cherry Hill Staff due to their own lack of planning …when the line is closed…sore posterior 40 days on the road….

Santa Rich

Santa’s Shorts

Stories, that is! Or should that be, “are”?

Mom came in with toddler on hip, put child down to get camera out of her purse. By the time she looked back up, child had run out of the set, under the guide ropes and about 30 yards on the way to Nordstrum’s! Not screaming or crying, just getting out of there!

Oldest kid on my lap: 94 year old girl. Youngest, 4 days.  That’s not a typo—a 4–day–old child.  Too swaddled up to tell what kind!  Of course younger ones in the oven as well.

Languages I have heard: Portugese, Hebrew, Albanian, Swedish, Japanese, German, The Queen’s English, Indian dialects, Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Nigerian, Vietnamese, New York Bronx.

A little girl didn’t want to be on my lap, but her parents kept cajoling her to stay. “One more picture! Then we’ll be done!”  She kept squirming and trying to get away, then settled down for a microsecond when the shot was taken.  Then she shrieked, “I’m done! I’m done!”  Jumped away and left the set!

Another little girl was vacillating between abject fear and overly–excited joyousness and thrills.  Just like you had taken your hand in front of your face and going up revealed a smile, going down revealed a frown.  Literally moment by moment switching.  Talk about schizophrenic… So funny watching her facial expression.

Two weeks ago, I waved at little girl outside of set with her parents, but she didn’t want to have anything to do with Santa.  Last night, she came on set with parents holding both her hands.  Then she broke away from parents, jumped up into Santa’s lap, just hugged and snuggled for minutes to the dropped jaws of her parents!

There has some talk of snow this Sunday.  I’ve been asking around about how reliable that is in Durham.  After all, if snow is mentioned in Chattanooga, we all know it will rain.  If we get snow we are usually blindsided by it through Birmingham or Atlanta.  Well here most people think it is pretty accurate—not that there will be much, but I am looking forward to seeing it snow from my 4th floor window. We shall see.

Another strange phenomenon are the kids who are barely able to pronounce the words (K-2?) asking for binoculars and telescopes… I am happy to hear the requests, but easily have received about 10 or so requests.  Makes me wonder where the marketing is coming from, or iof there are programs pushing them.  Maybe there is a planetarium in the area and recent field trips.  I have asked the kids, but they don’t seem to know where they have heard about it. Inquiring minds want to know…

Books read by Santa so far in Durham: The Shack by William Paul Young, a kind of a Celestine Prophecy for Christians, The Great Santa Search by Jeff Guinn.

Santa Rich Dwyer

What Child Is This?

This morning I ate breakfast “as Santa” at the Hilton where I am staying. We worked out an arrangement so I could stay an extra night (Christmas Eve) as my job ends that evening at 6pm.  (“Next year my employer will take care of that night as well,” I think to my self) but I digress.

As I finished a delicious freshly made omelet with cheese, tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms and bacon, I notice a man and woman in the lobby looking like they were waiting. He had gone outside to check again, and I motioned for the woman to come over to my table. We chatted for awhile.  She said that her friend’s daughter was graduating from Nursing School at Duke, and they were there for the ceremony.  She, too, was a nurse and apparently this was a good relationship going.  She asked me about my Santa work and I was telling her of some of my experiences.

Some children had come through the lobby, and I joked that the kids probably thought she might be Mrs. Claus!  I mention this chance meeting because she helped me to describe a feeling I got the other day and have had several times.

Here’s the scene.  I am holding an infant; don’t remember if boy or girl, doesn’t matter anyway, but after the pictures have been taken the parents will often leave me holding their little bundle while they look to approve the pictures, etc.  Well, this little one had been looking toward the camera and had been quiet and content sitting on my lap. Then she laid back against my chest, turned her/his little head up toward me and just looked.  I looked down at the child and we just looked into each other’s eyes. The child was not speaking or moving, just content to look into this Santa’s eyes for a considerable time.

And I had such an emotional reaction to that; almost brought to tears.  I thought to myself, “What’s up with this?”  Why this strong emotion? I mentioned this to my acquaintance at breakfast, and she came up with a quote which perfectly answered my feelings.

She wasn’t sure if this was verbatim, but goes something like this: “It is no small thing to be close to one so recently from God.”  The author may be someone named Stowe?  But that was it.  that put my feelings into words for me—Of course!

Finally the daughter did arrive, and her friend came to pick her back up. Thanking me as he had been working on a little speech he was going to giving at the graduation, and she didn’t have to wait alone while he was working on it. Talk about serendipity. Sometimes it is just too much!

Santa Rich Dwyer

Bull Durham & a Hindi Santa

Bright and early on Tuesday morning, I met Steve Locklear, of the Renaissance Barber Shop.  He opened up early to accommodate Santa to get his roots done. (Don’t laugh.)  He is of Lumbee Indian tribe, and lifelong resident of this area in North Carolina. The tribe was recognized but not fully “notarized” due to some dilution of the line since they had mixed with some early settlers from Virginia. The Lumbee River gets its name from the tribe; it means “black water.”

No casino for them—it was just denied. It was opposed by the Cherokee casino not far away. By the way, United States Census lists prominent Lumbee family names, including Locklear, Oxendine, Chavis, Lowry, Hammonds, Brooks, Brayboy, Cumbo, Revels, Carter and Kersey, as “all other free persons.” So if you know of anyone with these last names, they may descend from the Lumbee tribe in North Carolina..

A little about Durham. Of course, it’s right in the thick of Chapel Hill, Duke, the Research Triangle Park, North Carolina Central University, Wake Forest University just down the road at Winston-Salem.

This town is home to Durham Bulls, whose park has 10000 seats.  It was designed by the architects of Baltimore’s Camden Yards, capturing Durham’s unique brick texture. Founded in 1902, the Bulls are a Tampa Bay Devil Rays farm team. They are probably the nation’s most famous minor-league team, since the movie, Bull Durham, with Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon first played in 1988.  The Bulls play in the Triple-A International League, drawing nearly 500,000 fans each year.

Bull Durham was the world’s most famous trademark in the early 1900s, inspiring the present-day terms, “bullpen” and “shooting the bull.”  Durham was home to the “Black Wall Street” due to it’s African American prospering business here in the early 1900s.

Durhamite Richard Harvey Wright mechanized the production of tea bags. Also home to the Lucky Strike cigarette company,  and the site of the first Woolworth lunch counter sit-in 1960 attended by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Such diversity here. I have seen so many people coming across the Santa set, from so many different countries, languages, cultures—Japanese, Vietnamese, Albanian, Swedish, German, Indian, Chinese (seems like a lot of Chinese children have been adopted by Western parents here), Hispanics, Hebrew, just to name a handful!

On Tuesday evening, just before the closing down the set for the evening, two young children came, escaping their parents, and both hopped up on my knees, gleefully chattering away in what I thought might be an Indian dialect.  I asked them if they knew what they wanted for Christmas and they were able to tell me. Then Dad came to gather them up again. I then tried what little Hindi I had picked up and said to them (phonetically that is) “Apko maza ata hay?” Which loosely means are you having fun or a good time?  The kids’ eyes opened wide, and Dad said “A Santa who speaks Hindi!”

I quickly added “Now, that’s all I know!” But then he said “Cam cho?” How are you?  I had learned the answer to that was “Majama.” I am fine.  This was such a connection. I put my hands together, and we both exchanged “Namaste.”  ’Twas such a thrill to be able to connect with this family like this! Smiles all around!

Santa Rich

Cats & Dogs

Monday night is pet night from 6 to 9.  And this time, we had quite a few! Some Labs, a Greyhound, a Shi–Tzu, couple of Yorkies, a Heinz 57, and an English Bulldog, Moose.  He was so ugly he was beautiful!  He sat next to me on the chair.  If he didn’t want to move (or if he did), there wasn’t anything this Santa could have done about it!

Chihuahuas, a Bassett Hound, and then these two dogs, both black.  One was a mix of (mostly) German Shepherd and the other a lab.  BIG.  I kinda felt like the Mountain King with his two hunting hounds on his throne; one on either side of me.

Cats are also included, but we haven’t seen any yet, and I wonder how well it would fare if a cat were to visit Santa with all the dogs.

It’s kind of awkward for non–pet owners. They have to sign waiver indicating they understand it is pet night and the company is not responsible for allergy problems.  I really had only two combination pet and human visits that night, but Moose was the one I really remember!

Santa and Binkies

After a little investigative research and leaving no stone, er, binkie unturned, I now can give you…the rest of the story!

Consulting with other Santas, I learned that the tradition of children surrendering a binkie (pacifier) to Santa is spread as far as Europe where apparently it is a big thing. Here’s what I gleaned from other Santas:

“The child is told that they don’t need it anymore and that they can give it to Santa so he can give it to a new baby that needs one. This is what parents have told the child in preparation to give it up.”- Santa Tom.

“That’s a custom in northern Europe. The Santas carry a big collection of surrendered pacifiers. In Copenhagen they decorate trees with the suckies.”-Santa Peter.

So there you have it! Another unsolved mystery put to rest. I especially like the part about the “new baby needing it,” but I doubt that it’s the ultimate destination for these little one’s binkies.

Ho ho, ho. It’s off to work I go. Maybe a slow start to Monday since school’s not out for the holidays yet.

And oh yes! I had roast lamb last night. Yum, yum, Thanks so much!

Santa Rich Dwyer

Give It Up!

Did I mention I was busy yesterday afternoon? Well, today picked up right where yesterday ended. Wall to wall kids in line waiting to see Santa, every time I came out, first at 10am, back from lunch at 2pm, and back from supper at 6pm. I believe that Santa is maxed out, but the line just keeps getting longer!

And today was a first, at least for this Santa. A pacifier was surrendered to me (reluctantly), but surrendered nevertheless, by a toddler. I guess surrendering the pacifier was the terms for a visit with Santa. Well, this time she gave it up. It went well, and she made her visit with Santa, with many congratulations from me as to how proud I was of her big step!

So parents—and you know who you are—if that time in the life of your toddler is around Chroistmas, you have a way of dealing with it! Maybe I ought to post this on Facebook for the other Santas to see…this might be something new or an established tradition…!?

Tomorrow morning off to Eno River Church for the 9:15 service, Santa from 12-6 and then a home–cooked meal (Not out of cardboard box!) with my brother in law’s daughter’s family…

By the way if you see a commercial on channel 12, WDEF for four–wheelers, scooters and dirt bikes, yup that’s Santa Rich, dropping names!

A New Toy

Whew!

Just before lunch, 32 kindergartners came through and each one sat on my knee. I asked them what they wanted for Christmas. They told me, and I reminded them to keep their rooms clean, or their teeth brushed or work hard for Mrs. Holly (their teacher). Ended up going to lunch 10 minutes late.

When I came back from supper, there was already a line, and from 6 pm til 8:30, I didn’t even get a chance to come up for air as all the kids and some adults came past! I knew being a mall Santa wasn’t for sissies.

I get lots of questions about whether I came to the mall in my sleigh and reindeer. I always say no, the reindeer can only fly on Christmas Eve and that they are up at the North Pole eating their magic oats so they can make that long trip hauling Christmas presents. And that I came to the mall today in my Toyota.

“What’s a toy Yoda?” they will often ask, and I tell them to ask their parents. Wish I could be a fly on the wall for that conversation!

Santa Rich

Tuesday, December 1st.  Don’t forget those advent calendars…open the first door!

I was just coming into the mall down the entry hall this morning, when Mike the friendly, and helpful guy from the mall maintenance department shouted out to me,”Hey Santa, they talked about you today on the radio!”

I thought he meant they talked about Santa and said, “Sure, it’s that time of year.”  He replied, “No they talked about YOU!”

That stopped me and I turned around to hear what he was talking about.  He said that a woman had called a local radio station in the middle of some kind of holiday discussion and had told the announcer that the Santa at the Streets at Southpoint Mall was the best Santa she had ever experienced!  I was floored!

I have waited longer than I wanted to in order to talk on the radio, often hanging up before they could get to me. To think someone would spend the time and effort to say such kind words!  What a pleasant feeling to start the work day with!  I felt so honored by him telling me this as well.  ’Course, boots didn’t even touch the floor all the way to the set!

On Monday, I met a grandmother who has grandchildren in New York.  She is not able to see them this Christmas, so she asked if she could sit on Santa’s lap with 4 or 5 sheets of paper printed with names and wish list so as to be seen by the camera and her grandchildren, and surrounded by several dolls, and having a scarf set just so (knitted by one of her children).  We all got set up and the picture was taken to her complete satisfaction. I asked her how long she had been “theatrical” like this and she replied that she worked for 35 economists at one of the local universities, and she had to do something to maintain her sanity with all of them!

Santa Rich

After last night’s post, a UU Santa from Greensboro, NC emailed me with information about a UU church practically around the corner from me! The Eno River Fellowship—and it has a 9:15 am service!

And I know inquiring minds want to know about UU Santas:   Jack Grimes and Pete Leary are Santas, and UUs. So there are at least 3 known UU Santas, and I believe maybe one more I briefly met at GA in Fort Lauderdale.  Speaking for my self and at least one of the other UU Santas, sometimes we feel like “lone rangers” out there.

Off to church then a short Santa day this Sunday!

Santa Rich Dwyer