Time and Place

Disclaimer

The Santa Blog is written by Dave, not Santa. It is designed to be fun, humorous, and informational. It is not written in character and not for “true believers.”

Santa doesn’t have kids of his own (unless you’re Tim Allen’s version) and neither do I. Call it method Santa-ing. All the children of the world are Santa’s. So forgive my ignorance if there’s legitimate excitement folks get from it, but I have never understood the gender reveal. It’s 2026, girls want dinosaurs, boys can play with dolls, aren’t you supposed to be happy regardless of gender? Look if it sparks joy for you, don't let me stop you from doing it. I just don't fully understand them, though that pink cakepop was delicious. However, if you want to do a gender reveal, or other sort of big announcement, while meeting Santa, that's where we're going to pump the brakes a bit. Look, I want Santa to be a part of your special days. Invite him to your wedding, have him make an engagement announcement video. Heck, he’d even do a gender reveal for you (extremely excessive gender reveal fee applies). But when it comes to meeting Santa vs having Santa involved in a life event, we have to have a dividing line. Especially when the little ones are a part of it.

This has happened to me on more than one occasion and I can tell you it’s not going to go how you think it’s going to go. The first example I’ll provide to you is much more innocuous than the second, but it also provides the context of where your kids head is at when meeting Mr. C.

So I’m doing my fundraiser event and one of the girls who has come to visit every year is there. (Props to me I remembered what she asked for last year) This year she asks for a makeup kit. Real big girl stuff. Well after she’s done her visit, there’s a bit of a lull in the action, there's no one waiting in line and her mom says to her “why don’t you tell Santa what you’re getting after Christmas”

“A makeup kit!” she replies with gusto.

“No after Christmas”

“Umm, toys!”

“Not toys”

“Uhmm, a kitten…” (may not have been a kitten but you get the point)

“No, you’re getting a baby sister.”

“Oh yeah! I’m going to be a big sister!”

Big Sister!

Santa mode was activated! Big sister was not even in the top five of her brain thoughts. We’re running through the gift list. We’re telling Santa how good we’ve been. Heck we might even be crying cause we’re scared of the big guy in the fuzzy suit. Santa time is Santa time. For most kids this is their one chance, for less than five minutes, to tell the big guy everything they need to tell him this year. As exciting as this might be for you to announce your big life event, it’s likely not for them. Especially if they are caught unawares.

Now onto the bigger faux pas. As I mentioned the first one was during down time at a charity gig. This one happened two Saturdays before Christmas at the Trout Expert Store. It’s busy as the North Pole on Christmas Eve. This family strategically positioned themselves to be front of the line when I got back from my break. My head elf excitedly runs up to me “Oh my goodness, we put a present behind your chair for the first group. When the little girl comes up give it to her. It’s a shirt that says ‘big sister’ and you’re going to tell her!”

My elf was so excited for this to happen. I was a bit more reserved. I’m a professional. I've seen how this goes, and it's generally not the way my elf was thinking. But I’m going to sell it, of course, I'm not going to turn them down. There’s just so many questionable things going on in this situation. Before you read on see how many you can think of. Think as the group, as other people in line etc. Have you thought? Ok, good here we go:

• She’s a little little girl, isn’t going to understand what’s happening

• This is going to take a while

• Other kids are going to wonder why Santa doesn’t have a present for them

• Everyone is going to want “their” picture (grandma, aunts, brother etc)

• Getting the picture is going to be impossible

• Why would Santa be the one to tell her this?

• She just wants to see Santa and tell him what she wants for Christmas

• Is she supposed to put the shirt on?

I'm sure there's more, but these are a few that take Santa from "Ho, Ho, Ho" to "Ho, Ho, Uh-oh".

Now I mentioned in my previous blog that the timing isn’t important to me. Everyone should get appropriate time, whatever that looks like, for their situation. But as Big Box Store Santa, aka Mall Santa, you do have to be cognizant of time to an extent. If you’re the next parent in line and this takes ten minutes and your kid is asking why that little girl got a present, it's probably not going to be ideal. Hopefully you'll understand and be excited, but there's also a chance you lean more Ellen Griswold "It's Christmas and we're all miserable". It's a fine line between the two. I hope you have the patience and understanding to let this one slide, but I also get if you've been waiting for two hours and you don't.

So, as you might expect, the little girl comes up. She already to tell me what she wants. I give her the present and tell her congratulations she’s going to be a big sister. She looks at the shirt and just absolute confusion sets in. I don’t know if she doesn’t understand or just has Santa on the brain, but she’s just bewildered. The staff is going nuts cause they’re excited. Mom is saying “mommy’s pregnant, you’re going to be a big sister”. Everyone is trying to take pictures of the “moment”. I’m thinking that there's a lot going on here, and I dye my beard white and dance around in a red suit for a living. I can’t imagine what this like four year old is feeling.

We finally get the pictures and everything is sorted. Mom and Dad get pictures with the ultrasound. I’m sure they came away happy. But I’m not so sure about the little girl. We did get a chance to talk shop, and I'm pretty sure little sibling wasn't on her list. I don't think she got her full Santa experience. I hope she got another one at some point. Maybe I'm overplaying that a little bit, but I don't think I am.

No lines, no problem. We can announce anything you'd like

I don't tell you about these less than stellar moments to tell you not to do things like this at all. If you love Santa and Christmas as much as I do, of course I want the big guy to be a part of your special moments. But lets be a little more strategic about it. The best option, of course, is to hire me privately and then we have the time to do whatever it is we’re doing and still have time to do the full Santa thing. But I get that not everyone can afford or wants to do that. But, if you’re going to do this publicly, especially at a “free” event or in the sporting goods store, maybe we can prep the young ones. If you don’t want to ruin the surprise, maybe tell them Santa is going to tell them something important. Like I said, I’m not a parent so I don’t have a good answer, but so far my experience says that whatever we’re doing now isn’t it. Santa time is Santa time. Especially where kids are involved. A pregnancy announcement with just you and your partner is fine. You want to propose in front of Santa, let’s do it! But if you’re taking the Santa moment away from the little ones, let’s pause. We can do this, but let's make sure we do it in a way that is joyful for everyone. I'm down to figure that out with you so we don't have "I'm going to be a big sister" left off the Christmas list altogether.

I definitely want to be involved in your special moments. Heck I’ll officiate your wedding if that’s what you’re into. But we can also make sure the Santa moment itself is special. It comes but once a year, we've got 364 other days for gender reveals!