Worst Santa Ever…

OK, I wasn’t that bad. It’s not like I was drunk or anything. It’s just that at six feet, 164 pounds, there’s some serious padding missing. And the pillows just didn’t cut it.

Our nanny and her circle of nannies always get the kids together for presents before Christmas. They get someone to play Santa and give out the gifts. This year whoever was going to do it fell through, so I became the last minute sub.

The danger here is that at 5 years old, Danielle has a decent chance of recognizing me. And it’s not just her, all of her friends know me reasonably well.

I get to the house where they are doing this. I sneak into a bedroom and start to get dressed up. Then I hear two of the older boys sneaking around saying “let’s find out who Santa really is this year”. Their mother manages to shoo them away.

So I make my grand entrance. Lots of “ho, ho, ho’s”. I hear one of Danielle’s friends say, “I think that’s Danielle’s daddy”. Uh-oh. But I stay in character and it goes relatively well. I read a story (on the right kneeling is Danielle and her best friend Cordelia):

I hand out presents (that’s Danielle getting hers)

Some of the younger ones are afraid of Santa. But Victoria wasn’t:

Afterwards the nannies apparently convinced the girls that Santa just looked a bit like Danielle’s daddy. The funny part was that Danielle told me later that this Santa had green eyes. I have blue eyes. So that clinched it with her that this Santa wasn’t me. Though she did say he sounded like me. But since this Santa had green eyes and Danielle knows that Santa has blue eyes (not sure where she got that, but she’s quite adamant about it) she knew that this one was one of Santa’s helpers. And that made sense because she knows the real Santa is very busy.

So maybe not the worst Santa ever, but I need to gain weight if I’m going to keep doing this…