Tuesday, February 17, 2015

The Time Santa Dropped a Baby...

I didn't do Sant for years.

I never had Santa growing up so I found it weird to do the character.  Santa was something in the other kids houses.  I didn't miss Santa, he struck me as pretty stupid actually.

Growing up to be a professional children's entertainer, lots of people wanted me to perform as Santa.

A Jewish friend of mine talked me into doing Santa.

The first year I did Santa, Santa made enough extra money to get me a new car.  Well half a car.  I made an extra $4500 over Christmas.  So now I do it every year.  That's a lot of money.

I'm a great Santa because I've been performing for so long.  I am intuitive and can read people.  I know what to do when kids are afraid, how to pose pictures and mostly how to create a complete character.  Once I put on the beard and belly, you can't break my focus.

How I made so much money that first year?  I landed a Santa gig at a large hotel every weekend for the month of December.  It was huge.  I sat in a big chair under a hundred foot tree and took pictures.
The downside, most people didn't know about this magnificent event. So I had to walk around finding people to take pictures with.

I had done Santa maybe 3 times when I dropped a baby.  yup.  dropped.  It wiggled out of my grip and clunked to the ground.

The baby was maybe 6 weeks old.  Splat.

There were a bunch of kids with me and I had the tiny baby in the crook of my arm.    All the kids leapt up at once when the picture was done and the baby slipped out...phhht.

I now keep a grip on babies.  That's something that can only happen once.  I'm like a professional football player, you can't get the baby out of my grip.

But once.  Just once, I dropped a baby.

Luckily it was only a few inches and children are made of rubber.  The baby hardly even cried.

But I felt bad.  Pathetic really.  With all my years of experience.  I dropped the baby.  The dad swooped him up and said, he's ok don't worry.

Santa had a very bad day.  

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