It's taken me far longer than I intended, but here's the second part of four stories charting my experiences of being Santa for the amusement of various folk.
2. Cuddle-Me Santa: Infamy
Hot on the heels of this questionable success, I was asked to continue as stand-in for NicotineSanta at the local primary school - my old one. this stretched my Santa-ing abilities no further than wandering into all the classrooms and saying hi to the kids. Some of these young rapscallions knew me from around, so it was the acid test of the suit's effectiveness and my special Santa voice (more on that later). The funniest moment came when I was in with the 3rd and 4th class kids (9-10 year-olds) and my brother's best mate's little brother, whom I had met a few times, scrutinised what little of my face he could make out and nervously asked "Do you know my sister Suzanna?" I assured him that Santa knows everyone and moved on quickly. The beard, and the voice, had passed muster.
Now, about the voice: I figured Santa should have a deep, booming voice. Mine's deep-ish, but really quite meek in volume and resonance, so this ended up putting quite a strain on my larynx. Taking my cue from the Lord of the Rings movies (as I am wont to do in may aspects of life), I was aiming for somewhere between the gentle-but-commanding tone of Ian McKellen's Gandalf and the somewhat more sinister sound of Christopher Lee's Saruman. in reality though, I'm pretty sure I ended up sounding a lot closer to Aslan - not the one voiced by Liam Neeson in the Narnia movies ( I reckon I'd get laid 24/7 if I sounded like Liamo), but that asshole Token from South Park meets when he decides to become a lion.
I preserved this veneer of austerity for quite a while, until i found myself in the Junior Infants class. A wee blonde-headed girl of no more than 4 came up to me with her lunchbox, opened it up, and put a little box of tiny Smarties in my hand and said "These are sweeties for you, Santa." The big voice was entirely dropped and I crouched down to her level, saying something along the lines"Ahwouldyoujustlookatyouwithyourdoteylittlefaceandyourcurlsandandyourweelittleshoesandyourlovelylittleface?"
SternSanta act now abandoned, the kids swiftly realised that I'm something of a softie when it comes to little people and swarmed me from then on in. Legs were clung to, songs were sung and tears were shed (largely by me) as I finally made my exit. Santa's rise to power was complete, the key demographic had been cracked.
5 comment(s):
I was once Santa for a friend's creche. Possibly due to my girth and fetish for facial hair. I've never admitted this publicly before.
"Do you know my sister Suzanna?"
Biblically?
Other than that, aww, ya big softy.
AWWWW.
Rick - Fetish for facial hair? You only have to pretend to be Santa, not fancy him.
Darragh - Suzanna has grown up to be a very attractive young lady. But she would've been about 14 at the time so no, not biblically.
Jo - Indeed. And thank you, that beats snotty tissues in the post.
I think it was a snotty t shirt.
Coulda been worse, hon, I once had to dissuade a friend from sending her ex a dead rat.
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