My Six Weeks as Santa's Little Helper
by Nicole
I have been meaning to write this article for years, but never seemed to remember to do it. Back in the winter of '95 I was living down in Maryland, married to my ex asshole. I got a job working for Pictures with Santa at the local mall. It wasn't a bad job at all. It was run by Cherry Hill Photos, but I never actually saw anyone from the real company because they hired local people to run the whole thing, from hiring to scheduling to writing out paychecks. My manager was an incredibly nice lady who I only saw once or twice. She hired me with no references, gave me the exact hours I wanted, and even let me have the mandatory TB test read by my aunt who is an MA and EMT instead of by the company hired doctor when I had to unexpectedly leave town for my great grandma's funeral. I have no complaints about the company itself (except that the photos are way too expensive), I just wanted to make that very clear from the beginning. I did, however, have a major problem with the Santa that the mall had independently hired. He was a mean spirited, racist, cruel man who didn't deserve the privilege of portraying the kindly image that all children far and wide hold so close to their hearts. He was hired because he had experience, and he looked exactly like Santa. When the children were on the stage, he was a perfect example of the real Saint Nick, but when we were alone on the set, it was a completely different story.
First of all, he would make terribly racist comments about children he saw passing by. He laughingly referred to one child as an "Oreo" because she had one white and one black parent, and made several comments about how people shouldn't be allowed to do that and how that child's life was ruined. He also referred to Asian children as "slants". One day when we were on the set a young punk couple brought their two year old daughter to see him. The mother had purple hair, and the father was wearing a punk shirt that I can't really remember. The little girl was beautiful and obviously very loved. When the child refused to sit on Santa's lap out of fear, they didn't push her. They simply decided that maybe she would feel more comfortable next year and left. When they were gone, our Santa said that "freaks like that shouldn't be allowed to have children" and that the child should be taken from them. A few hours later, an older man came with his daughter and granddaughter, also about two or three. Again, the child was afraid of Santa and wouldn't sit on his lap. But instead of handling the situation with a caring manner, the grandfather started yelling at the child, telling her there would be no Christmas if she didn't come get her picture taken with Santa. The child still refused, with tears glistening in her sad, terrified little eyes. This infuriated the grandfather even more, and he proceeded to actually hit the child right there in front of us. My assistant manager and I were astonished, and were just about to call security on the bastards ass when he finally accepted that the child was not going to comply no matter what he threatened her with, and they left. Afterwards, we were discussing the incident, and that jolly old bastard had the nerve to say "Now that's how you raise kids." He wasn't joking, he actually thought the grandfather was in the right. Two loving parents who dress differently than society dictates are terrible parents who don't deserve children, while an asshole who beats a little girl for being afraid while her mother stands by doing nothing deserves the parent of the year award? How fucking warped can you get?
Santa didn't reserve his cruelty for the so called "freaks of nature" children. He didn't care for me very much for some reason and that was obvious. I don't know why, I never did anything to him. I got along great with my assistant manager (Lori), who was also my coworker during the day. I had no complaints from anyone I worked for or with, yet this man just hated me. Maybe he saw me as a freak too. Who knows, who cares. On two days I had to work the set by myself with him because Lori's children were really ill. This gave him the chance to undermine my work every chance he got without getting bitched at by Lori. It's hard to work that set alone. I had to get the children to his lap, position them, get the smaller ones to smile, take the picture (which was done with computer imaging), get the parents approval which never happened until about the tenth try, ring up the sale, stock Santa's gift basket and start all over. I also had to open and close the set in the morning, for lunch and for dinner. It wouldn't have been too bad if I had a good Santa to work with, but we all know that I didn't.
He spent the entire two days yelling at me in front of the children, telling me to work faster, stock his basket faster, do this, do that, hurry hurry hurry. He even called me a stupid girl. Mind you he actually had no authority over me since he was hired by the mall and I was an employee of Cherry Hill. But what was I going to do? I couldn't yell at Santa in front of all those little kids, and it was very close to Christmas so there was an endless stream of children. When I was finally able to close the set almost an hour late, I went home and cried. My manager called me that night and asked how it went. I didn't want to sound like a whining bitch, so I said fine. But when she asked how Santa had treated me, I told her pretty much everything. She said she figured he would be a dick, and I had her full permission to punch the bastard if he ever said another unkind word to me, as long as I waited till there were no kids on the set. I didn't hit him though. In fact, I just acted nice as can be to let him think he wasn't getting to me, but it did make me feel a lot better to know that I had the full support and sympathy of my managers. I was even given a full extra day's pay for my troubles, and for taking care of everything on my own on such short notice.
The day before Christmas Eve was my last day. Santa actually gave me a Christmas card and said he didn't understand why there were hard feelings between us. I said nothing, took my last paycheck, and left. I was happy that it was over. That jerk ruined what otherwise was an ideal job. I loved the children, I loved the atmosphere, I loved the hours and the pay, but I will never look at another Santa set again without wondering what evil lurks behind those rosy red cheeks.