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So You want to be a Mall Santa

By Loring A. Windblad

This article is based upon Loring’s experiences as Santa for the past 37 years.

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.

About the author: Loring Windblad worked as a Santa Claus for many years, mostly for family and friends. But beginning 10 years ago he took it to the next step, as a Mall Santa. His newest Santa Claus endeavor is at http://www.santaclausca.com

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