You've Decided to be a Mall Santa? Series #2

This article is #2 in a series and is Copyright August 2005 by
http://www.santaclausca.com, Loring Windblad and Windy Dawn
Marketing and is based upon Loring’s experiences as Santa for
the past 37 years. This article may be freely copied and used on
other web sites only if it is copied complete with all links and
text, including this header, intact and unchanged except for
minor improvements such as misspellings and typos.
So many choices, so few you can really choose to do. But you’ve
decided, you’re gonna be a Mall Santa. Wonderful choice, it’s a
hard job, physically and emotionally, but it provides a basis of
job satisfaction not found elsewhere. Along with this particular
job, however, come a lot of slow curves with very fast breaks.
This is not something you can just walk into and do well right
away….although its possible. There is a learning curve, even for
the “natural”, and there is potential trauma “to Santa” that
Santa may not be able to overcome.
Check out “Reprint of a New York Times Article on Mall Santas”
for an idea and then come back here. As you see, it can be very
financially rewarding. It is also very personally rewarding in
the form of job satisfaction. But it’s not for everyone.
The trick here is to learn fast and not to take rejection
personally. Rejection? Yes.
I had been to three half-day training sessions conducted by
“professional” Santas, just designed to help us newbies get our
feet on the ground and do the job right. We were given all the
possible situations Santa may face and how to handle it. We were
given the basic fundamentals of “being Santa” as well.
Santa’s basic rules are: ! Santa is a toymaker. ! Santa is not a
preacher. ! Santa is not God. ! Santa makes toys and delivers
them to children for Christmas. ! Santa helps make Christmas
special for Kids. ! In the case of a Mall Santa, Santa helps
promote Toy (and other Christmas gift) sales in the Mall Shops
where he works. So Santa must know the shops in his mall. !
Santa cannot let rejection become personal. ! Santa does not
drink any alcohol.
There’re more rules but we’ll have to get to them in another
article. These are the basics, the most important ones.
My very first day: I arrived at the Mall an hour ahead of
schedule. I found this was very beneficial in that it let me
relax with a cup of coffee, get changed slowly, making sure I
got the Santa Suit on right, I looked my best and I was ready to
go. It was time.
I got up, walked down the mall jingling my bells and going “Ho,
Ho, Ho, Merry Christmas” all the way to the Santa stand. I
arrived; there was a big lineup, I took my seat and the kids
began coming in. The very first child in line was so eager to
see Santa, pulling on daddy’s hand to get there, paid for the
photo and got to the door, then put on the skids as daddy tried
to bring him up to Santa (15 feet away), began screaming, pulled
out of daddy’s grasp and ran screaming at the top of his voice
down the mall. Dad finally caught him. Number two was just as
bad. Number three was not a screamer but would not come close.
Number four came up and we had a great visit.
The upshot of this was that I kept my “Santa composure” pretty
well, as about half of the kids there to see Santa either
refused to come close or outright ran away screaming. I did not
take this rejection personally….or so I thought at the time.
However, waiting to go to work the next day I discovered that I
was feeling a strong sense of hesitancy. I realized that I was
taking the previous day’s rejection personally. Had Day Two been
anything like Day One, I would never have gone back to being
Santa again.