of newspapers in order to keep our socks dry. The Santas have a nice dressing room across the hail, but you don't want to see a Santa undress. Quite a few elves have taken to changing clothes in the hallway, beside their lockers. These elves tend to wear bathing suits underneath their costumes jams, I believe they are called.
The overall cutest elf is a fellow from Queens named Snowball. Snowball tends to ham it up with the children, some-times literally tumbling down the path to Santa's house. I tend to frown on that sort of behavior but Snowball is hands down adorable you want to put him in your pocket. Yesterday we worked together as Santa Elves and I became excited when he started saying things like, 'I'd followyou to Santa's house any day; Crumpet.'
It made me dizzy, this flirtation.
By mid-afternoon I was running into walls. At the end of our shift we were in the bathroom, changing clothes, when suddenly we were surrounded by three Santas and five other elves all of them were guys that Snowball had been flirting with.
Snowball just leads elves on, elves and Santas. He is playing a dangerous game.
This afternoon I was stuck being Photo Elf with Santa Santa. I don't know his real name; no one does. During most days, there is a slow period when you sit around the house and talk to your Santa. Most of them are nice guys and we sit around and laugh, but Santa Santa takes himself a bit too seriously. I asked him where he lives, Brooklyn or Manhattan, and he said, 'Why, I live at the North Pole with Mrs. Claus!' I asked what he does the rest of the year and he said, 'I make toys for all of the children.'
I said, 'Yes, but what do you do for money?'
'Santa doesn't need money,' he said.
Santa Santa sits and waves and jingles his bell sash when no one is there. He actually recited 'The Night Before Christmas,' and it was just the two of us in the house, no children. Just us. What do you do with a nut like that?
He says, 'Oh, Little Elf, Little Elf, straighten up those mantel toys for Santa.' I reminded him that I have a name, Crumpet, and then I straightened up the stuffed animals.
'Oh, Little Elf, Little Elf, bring Santa a throat lozenge.' So I brought him a lozenge.
Santa Santa has an elaborate little act for the children. He'll talk to them and give a hearty chuckle and ring his bells and then he asks them to name their favorite Christmas carol. Most of them say 'Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.' Santa Santa then asks if they will sing it for him. The children are shy and don't want to sing out loud, so Santa Santa says, 'Oh, Little Elf, Little Elf! Help young Brenda to sing that favorite carol of hers.' Then I have to stand there and sing 'Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,' which I hate. Half the time young Brenda's parents are my age and that certainly doesn't help matters much.
This afternoon I worked as an Exit Elf, telling people in a loud voice, 'THIS WAY OUT OF SANTALAND.' A woman was standing at one of the cash registers paying for her idea of a picture, while her son lay beneath her kicking and heaving, having a tantrum.
The woman said, 'Riley, if you don't start behaving yourself, Santa's not going to bring youany of those toys you asked for.'
The child said, 'He is too going to bring me toys, liar, he already told me.'
The woman grabbed my arm and said, 'You there, Elf, tell Riley here that if he doesn't start behaving immediately, then Santa's going to change his mind and bring him coal for Christmas.'
I said that Santa no longer traffics in coal. Instead, if you're bad he comes to your house and steals things. I told Riley that if he didn't behave himself, Santa was going to take away his TV and all his electrical appliances and leave him in the dark. 'All your appliances, including the refrigerator. Your food is going to spoil and smell bad. It's going to be so cold and dark where you are. Man, Riley, are you ever going to suffer. You're going to wish you never heard the name Santa.'
The woman got a worried look on her face and said, 'All right, that's enough.'
I said, 'He's going to take your car and your furniture and all the towels and blankets and leave you with nothing.'
The mother said, 'No, that's enough, really.'
I spend all day lying to people, saying, 'You look so pretty,' and, 'Santa can't wait to visit with you. You're all he talks about. It's just not Christmas without you. You're Santa's favorite person in the entire tri-state area.' Sometimes I lay it on real thick: 'Aren't you the Princess of Rongovia? Santa said a beautiful Princess was coming here to visit him. He said she would be wearing a red dress and that she was very pretty, but not stuck up or two- faced. That's you, isn't it?' I lay it on and the parents mouth the words 'Thank you' and 'Good job.'
To one child I said, 'You're a model, aren't you?' The girl was maybe six years old and said, 'Yes, I model, but I also act. I just got a second callback for a Fisher Price commercial.' The girl's mother said, 'You may recognize Katelyn from the 'My First Sony' campaign. She's on the box.' I said yes, of course.
All I do is lie, and that has made me immune to compliments.
Lately I am feeling trollish and have changed my elf name from Crumpet to Blisters. Blisters I think it's cute.
Today a child told Santa Ken that he wanted his dead father backand a complete set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Everyone wants those Turtles.
Last year a woman decided she wanted a picture of her cat sitting on Santa's lap, so she smuggled it into Macy's in a duffel bag. The cat sat on Santa's lap for five seconds before it shot out the door, and it took six elves forty-five minutes before they found it in the kitchen of the employee cafeteria.
A child came to Santa this morning and his mother said, 'All right, Jason. Tell Santa what you want. Tell him what you want.'
Jason said, 'I. . want. . Prokton and. . Gamble to. . stop animal testing.'
The mother said, 'Proctor, Jason, that's Proctor and Gamble. And what do they do to animals? Do they torture animals, Jason? Is that what they do?'
Jason said, Yes, they torture. He was probably six years old.
This week my least favorite elf is a guy from Florida whom I call 'The Walrus.' The Walrus has a handlebar mustache, no chin, and a neck the size of my waist. In the dressing room he confesses to being 'a bit of a ladies' man.'
The Walrus acts as though SantaLand were a single's bar. It is embarrassing to work with him. We'll be together at the Magic Window, where he pulls women aside, places his arm around their shoulders, and says, 'I know you're not going to ask Santa for good looks. You've already got those, pretty lady. Yes, you've got those in spades.'
In his mind the women are charmed, dizzy with his attention.
I pull him aside and say, 'That was amother you just did that to, a married woman with three children.'
He says, 'I didn't see any ring.' Then he turns to the next available woman and whistles, 'Santa's married but I'm not. Hey, pretty lady, I've got plenty of room on my knee.'
I Photo Elfed all day for a variety of Santas and it struck me that many of the parents don't allow their children to speak at all. A child sits upon Santa's lap and the parents say, 'All right now, Amber, tell Santa what you want. Tell him you want a Baby Alive and My Pretty Ballerina and that winter coat you saw in the catalog.'
The parents name the gifts they have already bought. They don't want to hear the word 'pony,' or 'television set,' so they talk through the entire visit, placing words in the child's mouth. When the child hops off the lap, the parents address their children, each and every time, with, 'What do you say to Santa?'
The child says, 'Thank you, Santa.'
It is sad because you would like to believe that everyone is unique and then they disappoint you every time by being exactly the same, asking for the same things, reciting the exact same lines as though they have been handed a script.
All of the adults ask for a Gold Card or a BMW and they rock with laughter, thinking they are the first person brazen enough to request such pleasures.
Santa says, 'I'll see what I can do.'
Couples over the age of fifty all say, 'I don't want to sit on your lap, Santa, I'm afraid I might break it!'
How do you break a lap? How did so many people get the idea to say the exact same thing?
I went to a store on the Upper West Side. This store is like a Museum of Natural History where everything is for sale: every taxidermic or skeletal animal that roams the earth is represented in this shop and, because of that, it
