[The following was written in December of 2004. A version of this essay was published in the Hudson Current that month. I'm reprinting it here because I just did another Santa excursion, which I'll describe in a post very soon.]
Each man in his time arrives at certain milestones: getting a drivers’ license, landing a job, first prostate exam, etc. One of those milestones whizzed into view this Christmas, far too soon. At the ripe old age of 32, I was asked to play Santa Claus.
Santa does the Chicken Dance at All Saints, 12/12/08. Photo courtesy of Colleen Castle
I guess it was inevitable. I work with kids, and I’m fairly jolly, so the call was due to come sooner or later. And, being jolly and all, I said “sure!” without thinking it through. I read once that there’s a week-long training camp for wannabe Kris Kringles. I laughed at the time. “How hard can it be?” I asked myself.
Well. Turns out there are physiological and psychological ramifications that I never dreamed of.
For starters, just putting on Santa’s clothes is a complex and delicate project. The outfit in question was purchased by my friend Beth, who runs Pixydust on the corner of 7th and Willow. (Hi Beth!) It’s a beautiful costume, but not without its shortcomings. At the heart of Jolly Ol’ Saint Nick, under all the hair and fur, is an apron-like garment with a big kangaroo pouch, where the pillow or other plumping-up gear goes, Of course, the costume doesn’t come with a pillow, Beth had none in her store, and I foolishly forgot to carry one with me. So for my first excursion as Santa, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I stuffed myself with the fleece jacket I’d been wearing, which rode low and lumpy, more beer gut than bowl full of jelly.
On later dates I remembered my pillow, but here’s something you may not have realized: For all its’ fluffy softness, a pillow is rectangular. The top corners of the pillow jutted out of the pouch and created an unsightly “man-breast” image under the coat. I wondered (to myself) if there was anything from Victoria’s Secret that could help lessen the effect, but I quickly shut down that train of thought. The world isn’t ready for a cross-dressing Santa.
One dons the garb of Father Christmas as one would approach Scuba gear: slowly, methodically, with painstaking attention to detail and to the proper sequence. For example, do the pants and boots first, because once the tummy is properly plumped up, you’ve said farewell to your feet for the duration. Yes, I learned this the hard way. Similarly, save the beard and wig for last, because Santa doesn’t enjoy the peripheral vision the rest of us do. The world becomes a white, fuzzy, yak-hair tunnel. The comparisons to Scuba gear carry all the way through; once geared up, I found the costume to be awkward, overly warm and slightly claustrophobic.
(“Claustrophobic.” Get it?)
Plus, like a Scuba mask, my prop Santa spectacles kept fogging up, and there’s nothing more unsightly than a Saint Nick who’s wiping spit on the lenses of his glasses. Not that I could have spit, even if I’d wanted to; my mouth was always full of stray yak hairs.
Fortunately, once the costume is fully on, Santa only has to perform a few tasks; Mainly I just had to be jolly. And once I was clear of Pixydust, where I felt like the proverbial bull in the china shop, I found myself strolling the sidewalks of Hoboken completely transformed. Checking my reflection in a large pane of glass, I saw no trace of me (except maybe around the eyebrows, which were too dark and stood in stark contrast to the snow-white beard). I was looking at Santa Claus.
And here’s where the real fun began. For all of its emerging family-friendliness, Hoboken can be an anonymous place. But everyone knows and loves Santa. Everyone knows his name. Which is to say, that day everyone knew and loved me, for I Was Santa.
In my work as a children’s entertainer, I’ve found that there are two types of people in Hoboken: those who will acknowledge a grown man dressed as, say, a pirate, strolling down the street on any given week day, and those who won’t. The same held true for me on this occasion. The willing acknowledgers were an enthusiastic bunch, waving or honking, calling “hi Santa!” and making gift requests (mainly for new cars and large-screen TVs, greedy buggers). The ignorers, by contrast, hunched their shoulders, stared at their shoes, and picked up the pace as they hustled by. Naturally, they’re the ones I ambushed on the sidewalk, with a hearty “Ho ho ho!”
A word about my voice: It’s not deep. Oh, it’s deep enough, not feminine or anything, but my father has a rich, rumbling voice, and I keep hoping that maybe someday I’ll grow into one of my own. Sadly, though, it seems my larynx (like my lone dimple) came from mom’s side of the family. Years of singing in rock bands haven’t helped. So my “ho ho ho” sounded somewhat like the aforementioned pirate, and somewhat like Ed McMahon. I compensated with volume; I’m a loud Santa. I can project.
And project I did. I found myself booming “Merry Christmas” to people blocks away. I walked up to total strangers and let my jolly-ness wash over them in huge crashing waves. Wearing the costume, I found, enabled me to totally get out of myself and shed those inhibitions; to become someone else. At first it was just good fun. The guys at the Christmas-tree stand on Willow gave me a bunch of candy canes to hand out. I saw some kids I knew and delighted them by wishing them a Merry Christmas by name. (I think their parents were delighted too, but I’m not sure. Beth told me later that she got a phone call, “who is your Santa and how does he know my child’s name?”)
At one point I found myself in a local Italian restaurant, boldly ho-ho-hoing a famous actor who dines there regularly. I was in and out before he knew what hit him.
That’s the thing; I was doing stuff I don’t think I would have done otherwise. I’m a happily married man (hi honey!) and a fairly respected member of the community, at least among three-year-olds. But in costume I found myself giving in to the dark side, just a little. I was supposed to be drumming up business for Beth’s store. But it was a cold day and the sidewalks were almost empty, so I bounded in and out of the shops up and down Washington street, offering Santa’s services for parties, flirting with hairdressers and waitresses, asking who’d been naughty. Like Jack Skellington, I found out what happens when you mix a little too much Halloween with Christmas, especially in a town with so many bars.
The upside is, Santa drinks for free in Hoboken, but we won’t get into that here.
I’m happy to say I was able to spread some holiday cheer. I’ve done some parties since then, of the “kids get your picture taken with Santa” variety, in much more controlled environments. At one event in Soho in Manhattan, we shared the party space with a bunch of Jewish families celebrating a birthday. Without switching gears I wished them a Happy Hanukah in my best pirate/Ed McMahon voice. I’ve gotten a lot better at putting on the costume, and at keeping the yak hair out of my mouth. Most importantly, I think I’m better at being Santa, as opposed to just Dave-in-a-Santa-Suit.
My final exam may be coming up. There’s a voicemail waiting for me from the Mayor’s office. He’s looking for a Claus for his “Santaland” this weekend, and someone gave him my number. Wish me luck.
Oh, and Merry Christmas.
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