Keeping Santa Sane

November 28, 2003

This year, Santa is arriving in multiple parades. He will be escorted by Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and local military heroes. Galesburg will welcome Santa riding on Engine 19, along with the American-flag-waving firefighting men and women of the Galesburg Volunteer Fire Department. In Kansas City, he will be escorted by the ever-popular evening news weather personality and Boris, the storm-predicting cat, who, incidentally, will be the Celebrity Host for the Paws and Claus evening. Santa will also arrive by antique fire engine, helicopter, horse and carriage, public transit, golf cart and parachute (dangerous, because what do you say to the children if he breaks a leg?). If it's a mode of transportation, Santa arrives by it. However, in Fresno, all the children will gather around a Santa sleeping in his new holiday Lodge at Fashion Fair, where they will all scream and yell to wake up Santa. It's a mental image that conjures up visions of strollers and screaming children dancing in my head.

I'm overwhelmed with Santa facts and I'm spoon-feeding our designers Santa information so as not to overwhelm them. In Capitola, Capitola Mall's Santa sits in his Castle-by-the-Sea. In Dallas, Valley View's Santa died last year, so we have to make sure we delete his photo from all the promotional materials and insert the new Santa, who hangs out at Valley View's Dickens' Village.

In Great Falls, Holiday Village Mall has a generic Santa, but apparently we used a different Santa on their promotional materials two years ago, and they want the same Santa on the new materials so they have matching Santas. Not an unreasonable request. However, we just spent the last two hours comparing photos, trying to figure out which Santa is the real generic Santa in Great Falls. It's complicated task as you can't exactly call the client and say, "Could you describe Santa?" because they all have white beards, their head cocked slightly to the left, and wire-rim glasses.

Faced with a dozen Santas, you begin to identify Santa by the secondary characteristics. The conversation in our office at this time of year is highly intellectual: "Do you think we used Drunk Santa? Or Winking Santa? Maybe we used Sinister Santa. Certainly, we didn't use Psycho Santa because he died three years ago." It's my job, in this situation when you don't know one Santa from the next, to keep everyone calm. Although, that doesn't always happen.

In Sandy, South Towne's Santa is the Legendary Santa. Four years ago when we introduced the Legendary Santa, the marketing director insisted we tout on the promotional poster, "South Towne's Legendary Santa with Real Beard."

"If he's the real Santa," I said over the phone, "then the real beard is implied. You don't need to clutter the poster by pointing out that information."

"You don't understand," she said. "People come to South Towne because OUR Santa is the REAL Santa. He has a REAL beard. He is the REAL Santa and people need to know that."

"Listen to you," I snapped back at my client. "Listen. To. You. And what you're saying. Do you hear yourself? You are talking about Santa. One of the greatest conspiracies against children in our country, and you're talking about him like he's REAL!" Clearly, a Santa-induced Snap on my part.

"Maybe you're right," she said. "After all, we do have a picture of him on the poster."

I understand the pressure shopping mall marketing directors across the country are under to come up with new and creative ways to make Santa arrive at their shopping malls. Ten years ago, when I was a shopping mall mascot (a dinosaur), I was part of the brainstorming behind our Santa arrivals. (Although, the good ideas rarely came in storms, they came in spews.) Sitting around the conference table, we thought we had come up with the ultimate Santa arrival brainspew. Santa would arrive via Helicopter, and with him, he would bring a fireworks display. How we were going to shoot fireworks while a helicopter containing Santa hovered overhead was just a minor detail we had to work out, but the real hurdle came when we learned that in the City of Chicago, helicopters cannot land just anywhere unless they are police helicopters or it's a mechanical emergency.

"We could fake a mechanical emergency. Add some drama?" I suggested. My coworkers looked at me in a way that underscored why my biggest responsibility is dressing in foam and fabric.

"How about if we push him out, and we call it 'Operation Santa Drop,'" was my second brain spew. The marketing director looked at me with a twinkle that indicated this was the most brilliant idea ever, only what escaped her mouth was, "I don't think we want to be responsible for killing Santa."

In the end, Santa in the helicopter was simply a fly-by Santa. And through Santa Magic, a little sprinkle dust, song, dance and fireworks, Houdini Santa burst out of a gift box on a stage. That, my friends, was how I spent my Thanksgiving weekend. It brought 5,000 people to the center on the Friday night after Thanksgiving. The stores had to stay open late, but the merchants gave no thanks ­ they would rather have closed early on that Friday evening so they could get to their holiday parties.

Ten years later and on the agency side of the business, I've helped over 200 shopping centers with their marketing programs through the years. By my rough calculations, that's approximately some 500 Santa details I've tracked. And that's not even including the Bethlehem Marketplace where the First Baptist Church dresses in costume for an Arts & Crafts show and petting zoo in the JCPenney wing. Those events are a whole other category.

11/28/02