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‘WANTED: Santa for Bradhall Shopping Centre. Immediate start. Good pay offered to the right candidate.'
The advert had attracted 12 applicants. Jimmy Johnson, the centre manager, had started off the day with a detailed wish list.
But after a full day of interviews, he’d whittled the wish list down to three key qualities: a friendly manner, good with children and – most importantly – doesn’t have a laugh like a super-villain.
He mopped his brow as he waited for the final prospective Santa to arrive.
Unless you were under the age of 10, he reflected, Christmas was a highly stressful time of year. And this was especially true if you were the manager of a large and failing shopping centre.
“Bradhall’s days are numbered,” claimed the headline in the local newspaper today. “The centre is a relic of the dark ages with outdated décor and facilities . . .”
Jimmy knew his shopping centre needed a facelift, but the money simply wasn’t there. A new mall had recently opened out of town. Thanks to a huge advertising campaign, it had stolen most of Bradhall’s business.
Even now, in the lead-up to Christmas, Bradhall was half-empty and stores were closing down. His publicity budget this year? A big fat zilch.
Ah, here was candidate 12 – in full costume, fluffy white beard and all.
“You’re keen,” Jimmy said.
His candidate nodded and smiled.
“We normally supply the costume,” Jimmy said.
His candidate nodded and smiled.
This one didn’t stink of whisky like candidate No 2, or cigarettes like candidate No 4, and he certainly looked the part, but Jimmy would reserve judgement until he’d heard him laugh.
“Welcome to Santa’s grotto,” Jimmy said, gesturing around them. “Please, have a seat.” He indicated the red-and-gold throne-like seat.
It was shabby and faded these days, but with the amount of visitors Santa was likely to get this Christmas, Jimmy couldn’t justify the cost of buying a new one.
Santa sat down. He was younger than the other candidates, Jimmy guessed, although there was so little skin visible under the bushy beard and monstrous moustache that it was hard to tell.
He glanced down at the candidate’s résumé, but no date of birth was shown.
In fact, the résumé said very little. The candidate hadn’t even supplied a first name. Just: A Markham.
“Do you have any relevant experience?” Jimmy asked.
Santa thought about it and shook his head, sending the little white bobble on his hat flopping back and forth.
“Not to worry,” Jimmy said. “Just to confirm, are you available throughout the Christmas
period?”
Santa nodded and smiled.
Jimmy needed to hear him laugh. Hear him speak, even. Candidate No 7 had such a loud booming voice that the whole grotto had shaken whenever he spoke.
Midway through the interview, one of the side walls had toppled down with a crash and by the end of it, half of the baubles had fallen off the tree.
“Let’s try some role play,” Jimmy said. “Pretend I’m a small child who has come to visit you. Now, I’m not going to sit on your knee, obviously.”
He laughed loudly, hoping to prompt a laugh from Santa too. Instead, Santa brought a small device from his pocket, pressed a button and a jolly ho-ho-ho sounded, accompanied by the faint jingle of sleigh bells.
A nice touch, Jimmy thought. And infinitely preferable to a super-villain laugh.
“Hello, Santa,” Jimmy said in a child-like voice.
Santa lifted a small brown sack from the floor. Wow, he really was keen. Not only had he supplied his own costume, he’d also brought along his own presents!
Santa pointed to the sack, pointed to Jimmy and cupped his hand to his ear for Jimmy to whisper what he wanted.
“I’d like a toy car, please, Santa,” Jimmy said.
Santa winked and pulled a neatly wrapped present from his sack with a flourish.
“So you’re a mime Santa,” Jimmy said thoughtfully. “We’ve never had one of those before. I suppose it could work. In fact, the more timid children might like it. But how would you handle the naughty ones? Mime and sleigh bells won’t cut it with some of our clientele.”
Despite what you might think, playing a shopping-centre Santa wasn’t simply a bundle of ho-ho-hos. A modern-day Santa needed behaviour-management skills.
“A little boy pick-pocketed Santa’s car keys while sitting on his lap last year,” Jimmy said.
“A little girl absconded with Santa’s entire sack of presents and a two-year-old boy pulled off Santa’s moustache and ate it. How would you handle that, Mr Markham?”
Santa stared at him. Jimmy waited, eager to hear his voice.
“I suppose I could sit them on the naughty chair,” Santa said in a strained and high-pitched voice.
Jimmy reeled in shock. “You’re a woman?” he spluttered.
“Yes,” Santa said. “Is that a problem?”
Jimmy gaped. Of course it was a problem, but he couldn’t admit it, could he? He’d be sued for sex discrimination. He shuddered, imagining a demonstration outside the centre. Picketing it, even. Bradhall needed publicity, but not that sort of publicity.
“It’s just that we’ve never had a woman apply for this job before,” Jimmy said carefully.
He couldn’t remember what the rest of his questions were. Not that it mattered, because he clearly couldn’t hire a female Santa.
Mentally he ran through the previous candidates trying to decide which of them was the least bad. It’s probably a tie-up between the one who had demanded a two-hour lunch break and the one who couldn’t work the week before Christmas.
Jimmy pasted on his cheeriest smile and stood up.
“Thank you so much for coming, Ms Markham. We’ll give your application due consideration.”
Santa’s shoulders slumped. “I take it that’s a no.”
Jimmy shrugged helplessly.
“It’s not right, you know,” Santa said. “The only other job going in the centre is for a cleaner. It’s working the night shift and I have three young children, so I can’t do it, plus it only pays the minimum wage. It’s sexist.”
Jimmy racked his brain for a response. But before he could come up with one, a little girl burst into the grotto.
“Santa!” she shrieked.
A red-faced woman dived for her. Too late. The little girl clawed her way up Santa’s legs and scrambled into his – or rather her – lap.
“I’m so sorry,” the woman said.
The little girl gazed at Santa in wonder. “Weather radar,” she said.
Or something like that.
“Where are the reindeer?” Santa said. “Why, they’re in the car park, where I parked my sleigh.”
The mother’s eyes widened at the sound of Santa’s high-pitched voice.
But the little girl didn’t bat an eyelid. She touched Santa’s beard. “Yoghurt mane.”
What was that?
“I’ve got a mane?” Santa said. “Actually, it’s called a beard. Soft, isn’t it? It keeps me nice and warm at the North Pole.”
The little girl beamed. The girl’s mother smiled a strained smile too and scooped her daughter up.
“Bye-bye, Santa,” the girl shouted.
Santa sounded the ho-ho-ho and sleigh bells as the pair left.
Jimmy looked at Santa with new eyes. “I see you speak Toddler,” he said.
“I certainly do,” Santa said. “I have three of my own, remember?”
AT 9.30am on Monday morning, Jimmy walked through his shopping centre, hoping he’d made the right decision. The Grotto didn’t open until 10, so he was surprised to see a long line of people waiting – many of them laden with shopping centre purchases.
More people stood around, apparently just waiting for a glimpse of Santa. There was even a TV crew among them, jostling for space!
“Let’s face it,” Jimmy heard one woman say, “who’d want to let their child sit on a strange man’s knee, anyway?”
“You can’t be too careful these days,” another woman agreed sagely.
A man thrust a microphone into Jimmy’s face. “Is it true? Do you really have a female Santa?”
Jimmy smiled. “Yes, we do.”
He’d given Ms Markham a makeover. The beard had gone and she was now proudly female with long white hair, glittery red boots and a black skirt instead of trousers.
Jimmy turned to address the crowd. “The notion of a purely male Santa is an outdated concept – a relic of the dark ages. I think that out-of-town mall still has one, but Bradhall has entered
the 21st century. Our Santa is great with children – come and meet her.”
Who said Bradhall was on the way down? Maybe Christmas wasn’t going to be quite so stressful this year, after all.
© ALI LOCONTE
