Hopefully he wouldn’t torpedo anyone’s business by not being able to direct foot traffic their way this morning. It was going to be all he could do this afternoon to keep his head above water as he tried to make sure he didn’t mess anything up. The last thing he wanted was to singlehandedly ruin some poor kid’s Christmas.
Another elf—a teenager dressed in more typical North Pole garb—let him through the candy cane side-gate that led to Santa’s chair.
“Who are you?” the kid said under his breath. “Where’s Petey?”
“On his way to Hawaii. He won the raffle. I’m a last-minute replacement.”
“Oh, you’reWade,” the kid said, snapping his fingers. “He’s mentioned you. Sorry you got stuck with the red suit, buddy, but let’s get going before we have a full-on riot on our hands.”
Wade got going, taking a seat in Santa’s painted, filigreed throne. He didn’t appreciate the ominous, worrying creak it gave as he settled into it. The last thing he needed was it collapsing beneath him, especially when he had a kid balanced on his knee. He’d have to hope it always groaned.
He took a deep breath and motioned the first child forward.
“And what’s—”
The teenaged elf leaned forward and urgently whispered in his ear: “You have to do the Santa voice!”
Oh, right. He’d heard Petey do his bellowing ho-ho-ho’s before, so he knew how it was supposed to sound. But there was no way he could do it without feeling ridiculous.
He didn’t have to do an impression of Petey’s Santa, he just had to do an impression ofSanta. And while Santa often had a thunderous voice, it wasn’t universal. He would have to be more like Kris Kringle inMiracle on 34thStreet: a kindly, soft-spoken Santa.
He had just enough time to shake his head at the elf before a little girl hopped up onto his knee.
“And what’s your name?” Wade said in his best Kris Kringle.
(Off to his right, the elf sighed at this blatant violation of protocol.)
“Bethany,” the little girl said.
“And what do you—”
Bethany, unsurprisingly, was prepared for that question. She pushed up the sleeve of her sweater and began reading out a list literally as long as her arm.
Actually, it turned out it was as long as both her arms put together, because when she finished with what she’d written on one arm, she yanked up the other sleeve and started all overagain. Bethany’s poor mom, standing just within earshot and doing some frantic typing on her phone to try to keep up with all this, looked like she was going to have a heart attack. She shot Wade a look of pure panic.
Petey hadn’t prepared him for this. Partly, Wade knew, because there hadn’t been time, not when Petey wanted to be on a beach as soon as possible. But part of it was also that Honey Brook likely didn’t think this kind of thing was a problem. Mr. Marsh probably didn’t either.
Sure, a mall Santa was supposed to entertain the kids and leave them with happy holiday memories, but he wasalsosupposed to encourage parents to drop as much money at the mall’s stores as they could. A child with a Christmas list a mile long was good for business.
But the mom looked desperate, and it wasn’t like she was bedecked with diamonds. There was no way she could afford to buy everything her daughter was asking for.
“Those are all good choices, Bethany,” Wade said, hoping he wasn’t screwing this up. “But Santa can’t bring you all of them. I wouldn’t have room in my sack for anyone else’s gifts.”
Bethany squinted at him, suddenly suspicious. “But isn’t the inside of your sackinfinite?”
“Notquiteinfinite,” Wade said.
“You can fit toys for every kid in the world in there, butI’mgoing to be the tipping point where it gets to be too much? That doesn’t make any sense.”
Now it was Wade’s turn to shoot Bethany’s mom a panicked look, and all she could do was shrug helplessly at him.
Don’t look at me, the shrug seemed to say.Her dad’s the one who raised her to be a critical thinker.
“I can fit toys for every kid in the world in there,” Wade said carefully, “but notdozensof toys for every child.”
Bethany pursed her lips, thinking this over. “Okay, so what’s your average? How many gifts can I get without taking up too much space?”
Had he been this precocious as a child? He didn’t think so.
