The Real Santa Diaries

The author and his first visit with Santa

Professor Joe Goldblatt

Once upon a time …

Young mothers dressed in their finest clothes adorned by a hat, gloves, and matching shoes and led their children to a large downtown department store whose top floor had been transformed into a winter wonderland. Snowy trees created a thick red, green, and white maze of wonderment and a miniature train snaked within this forest eventually arriving with a puff of smoke at Santa’s Workshop.

Upon a large golden throne with a red velvet seat sat the jolly old man whose deep almost musical laugh could seemingly be heard throughout the entire city. Photos were taken, sometimes tears were shed, and memories were made that would last forever.

Perhaps this first experience with Santa Claus inspired me when I was later in my thirties to create Washington DC’s first University of the North Pole that became one of the largest training programmes for individuals who wished to become this mythical and magical revered figure.

One year when my wife and I were staging the arrival of one of our Santa’s at a local shopping centre our Santa suddenly cancelled due to suffering from a bad cold. I had to quickly replce our first choice and the only person available who was the local janitor who was somewhat heavy set and had the potential of being jolly.

He asked me how to play Santa and I handed him a slip of paper and said “When you come down the escallator just loudly shout these words over and over again and wave to the children.” The words I had cryptically written were “Merry Xmas to all!”

I assumed he would translate this phrase to “Merry Christmas” however instead he shouted over and over again with great entuhsiasm “Merry Ex Mas!”

The parents were shocked, however, their wee bairns were delighted because Santa had magically arrived and soon they would meet him.

At another shopping mall we came up with the idea of supplementing the traditional still photos with video cassettes so that children could have what we described as a “Movie Magic with Santa!” The videos were recorded on VHS cassettes and given to the parents at the conclusion of their visit.

However, sometimes the queues were so long and the parents were so impatient that we did not have time to check the content of the videos.

I recall on a Monday morning which was also Christmas eve my secretary told me I needed to answer the telephone quickly as a grandfather was furious about the video he had purchased.

The older gentleman huffed and puffed and screamed in my ear “This is not my grandson! What are you trying to pull? I showed the video to the entire family and I was terribly embarrassed!”

When I asked him what was wrong with the video he said even more loudly “My grandson is not black!”

It appears that we accidentally sent grandpa away with the wrong video.

I apologised and offered to re – record the video and offer him a refund. He finally accepted my mea culpa and said “Forget about it. This will be a wonderful funny family story in the years to come.”

Indeed, when I held Mama’s white gloved hand and sipped hot cocoa awaiting my visit with Santa I did not see any black children in the segregated southern United States, however, perhaps this too is part of the magic of Christmas in that with each succeeding festive season there is always the hope that we might just become more inclusive and celebrate our diversity so that one day in the future a grandfather will see his grandchild with Santa and witness only happiness and love and race, creed, and prejudice may finally vanish. And Merry Ex Mas to All!

Professor Joe Goldblatt is Emeritus Professor of Planned Events at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, Scotland. His views are his own. To learn about his views visit www.joegoldblatt.scot