Santa Is Sore, His Beard Is Loose, but the Magic Holds

Santa Leg Lift, don’t fail me now.

I was halfway through my first shift as Santa Claus, sitting in a sparkly winter forest setting at the center court of a Manhattan Beach mall, when this 5-year-old who looked like he weighed 200 pounds walked up and waited to sit on my knee.

The boy, named Chad, actually was no bigger than any child his age. Business at the Santa stand at the Manhattan Village Shopping Center had been brisk on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Having hoisted 60 other children into my lap, my back and shoulders ached as though a herd of reindeer had marched across them.

It was time to use the Leg Lift.

The lift is a movement perfected by generations of department store Santas in an attempt to avoid the back strain that comes from lifting children with their arms. By extending my left leg and dropping my left knee, I would enable Chad to sit on it by himself. Then, as I drew my left foot toward me, he would automatically rise to Santa’s lap level.

At least that is how they had explained it at Santa school. Chad had other ideas.

He started talking excitedly about how I had eaten the cookies and milk he left for me last Christmas. As he talked, he scooted around to my right leg and lifted his arms to be picked up.

I was not about to break the magic spell. So I reached out with my white-gloved hands and lifted Chad to my right knee, grimacing under my beard as we chatted about chocolate chip cookies and toy trucks and the importance of brushing teeth and going to bed on time.

There were more than 100 such magical moments during my first four hours as Santa. I found that the children were nicer than I had expected. Their parents were kinder. My back was sorer. There was none of the skepticism that I feared would come when the children looked past my phony beard and into my nervous eyes.

Four-year-old Amy would not recite her Christmas wish list until she threw her arms around my padded waist. “I love you, Santa!” she blurted out.

Stern-faced Charles, an 11-month-old who at seemed apprehensive, burst out laughing after he turned to see that I had a plastic-wrapped candy cane for him.

A 6-month-old named Connor broke out in tears at his first glimpse of me. His mother stepped out of line to feed him and he returned a few minutes later with a contented look. “Connor doesn’t talk much yet,” said Anne Geiran. “But he told me what he wants for Christmas is peace in Saudi Arabia.”

Adults passing through the mall waved at Santa throughout the day. One kindly man took his reading glasses out of his shirt pocket and positioned them on the tip of his nose to alert me that my plain-glass Santa spectacles were pushed back too far on my face.

Marcus, a boy of about 7, studied and quizzed me closely. “Where are your reindeer?” he asked, looking around the center court toward the 10 food stands behind me. Marcus was satisfied when I answered that they were visiting the zoo. Then he asked how I was getting home. I told him that they were coming back to the mall Friday night to pick me up.

Marcus seemed to step away a believer.

To my surprise, so did the other kids.

No one yanked on my beard to see if it was real, although a few large children came close to inadvertently pulling it off my face when they slid from my lap. Several babies almost did the same thing by grabbing onto it or tangling their tiny hands in it.

No one noticed that the beard seemed for a time to dance up and down on my face when I talked. That is because I poked a gob of its hair into my mouth the first time I tried to discreetly pop a breath mint through it.

My boss, John McGill III, coordinator of mall Santas for Western Temporary Services, used extra double-faced adhesive tape in hopes of making the beard stick beneath my nose. It was only partially successful: We decided that I will shave off my real-life mustache before my next mall assignment.

At the end of my shift, I took my aching back home for a long, steaming shower.

My beard went for a soak in a bath of lukewarm water and Woolite.