Poor Old Santa

I’ve officially discovered the worst job in the world. It may not SEEM like the worst job in the world, but attending our first official “Christmas Function – Come Get your Photo taken with Santa!” evoked some pity for the poor old chap in the red suit.

WARNING: If you are under 10, please stop reading right now. Or Santa won’t bring you any presents and you’ll wake up to a stocking of coal and your parents will look at you and say, “what did you DO to deserve COAL” and you’ll have to tell them that you DIDN”T stop READING when you were TOLD to and then they’ll restrict my site on your computer and you will sit in your room all alone every night staring at your tiny pile of coal with nothing to do.

For the rest of you, carry on….

Back to the poor old man at the church function. FIRST of all, he probably got a phone call a few weeks ago that might as well have gone like this, “Hey, Jim! You’re old and fat and you have white hair! Do you want to be SANTA at the church function next weekend?!?!”

And who can say no to that- - because EVERYONE loves Santa.

Right?

WRONG.

Every child under the age of 5 is TERRIFIED of Santa. And every adult who HAS a child under the age of 5 has an innate desire to get the PERFECT photo of their screaming child posing nicely with Santa. I’ll admit it- - that’s why WE went. We got the flyer and I said, “Rob! This sounds PERFECT! We get breakfast AND a photo with Santa and we don’t even have to go to a mall to get it!!!” Rob DID point out the fact that Toby probably wouldn’t like Santa, but hey, a picture with Santa is a picture with Santa.

That was, until my empathy alarms went off.

NO one likes screaming children. And most people don’t particularly like OTHER people’s screaming children. So imagine if you had to sit in a chair in a big red suit and get handed EVERY SCREAMING KID that went by and then have to pose for a picture with them.

That’s what this poor man had to do all morning while the rest of us ate pancakes and decorated gingerbread men. He probably had lots of friends there, but it’s not as if other adults could come and shoot the shit with him - - he was Santa. He had to carry on the pretense for the one or two 8-year-old kids who kept him company by continually running over and whining to him about what they wanted for Christmas.

I sheepishly admit that we DID get our photo with Santa. But I restrained myself enough not to force Toby to sit on his knee- the last thing this poor man needed was a drop kick to the belly. I’m proud to say that he didn’t CRY, but happy as he looks in the photo, he was whimpering the entire time.

We did get ONE good photo of him this morning. This one hails from 15 seconds after he’d finished licking the maple syrup off the tablecloth. They were good pancakes. I hope someone saved some for the old guy in the red suit to enjoy afterwards…