Santa Land Diaries by Sedaris David

Author:Sedaris, David [David, Sedaris,]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-07-05T04:00:00+00:00

Santa Land Diaries

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This week my least favorite elf is a guy from Florida whom I call “The Walrus.” The Walrus has a handlebar mustache, no chin, and a neck the size of my waist. In the dressing room he confesses to being “a bit of a ladies' man.”

The Walrus acts as though SantaLand were a singles bar. It is embarrassing to work with him. We'll be together at the Magic Window, where he pulls women aside, places his arm around their shoulders, and says. “I know you're not going to ask Santa for good looks. You've already got those, pretty lady. Yes, indeed, you've got those in spades.”

In his mind the women are charmed, dizzy with his attention.

I pull him aside and say, “That was a mother you just did that to, a married woman with three children.”

He says, “I didn't see any ring.” Then he turns to the next available woman and whistles, “Santa's married but I'm not. Hey, pretty lady, I've got plenty of room on my knee.”

I Photo Elfed all day for a variety of Santas and it struck me that many of the parents don't allow their children to speak at all. A child sits upon Santa's lap and the parents say, “All right now, Amber, tell Santa what you want. Tell him you want a Baby Alive and My Pretty Ballerina and that winter coat you saw in the catalog.”

The parents name the gifts they have already bought. They don't want to hear the word “pony,” or “television set,” so they talk through the entire visit, placing words in the child's mouth. When the child hops off the lap, the parents address their children, each and every time, with, “What do you say to Santa?”

The child says, “Thank you, Santa.”

It is sad because you would like to believe that everyone is unique and then they disappoint you every time by being exactly the same, asking for the same things, reciting the exact same lines as though they have been handed a script.

All of the adults ask for a Gold Card or a BMW and they rock with laughter, thinking they are the first person brazen enough to request such pleasures.

Santa says, “I'll see what I can do.”

Couples over the age of fifty all say, “I don't want to sit on your lap, Santa, I'm afraid I might break it!”

How do you break a lap? How did so many people get the idea to say the exact same thing?

I went to a store on the Upper West Side. This store is like a Museum of Natural History where everything is for sale: every taxidermic or skeletal animal that roams the earth is represented in this shop and, because of that, it is popular. I went with my brother last weekend. Near the cash register was a bowl of glass eyes and a sign reading “DO NOT HOLD THESE GLASS EYES UP AGAINST YOUR OWN EYES: THE ROUGH STEM CAN CAUSE INJURY.”

I talked to the fellow behind the counter and he said, “It's the same thing every time.

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