“Have you been good girls?” the man in the Santa suit asked my four and six-year-old. They nodded, hands clasped neatly over their bellies. Their cousin remained hiding behind my sister’s leg.
Santa crossed his legs in his too-short pants, revealing a thin stick of ankle. His beard was naturally grey, appearing darker against the stark white hair pieces that had been sewn to the edges of his cap.
“Do you go to your bedroom?” he asked.
My youngest looked at me. My six-year-old opened her mouth to answer, then closed it again.
“Do you listen to your mum,” he clarified.
They nodded, my six-year-old smiling wide in a way I didn’t recognise. “Um,” I began, over the cacophony of excited kids in the line behind us; harried parents arguing over the cost of tinsel and whose phone was on silent while they were paying for it.
Listen, Santa, how about you never say the words “good girl” or “bedroom” to another animal, mineral or vegetable, I wanted to say, but he was already doling out the Christmas decorations, which signalled the end of the exchange.
“Keep helping mum,” he said as we were leaving, and a wave of guilt rippled through me.
It was a windy Sunday morning at a Christmas tree farm on the peninsula. The kids ran ahead through a corridor of giant pines.
“He was great,” my sister said, aglow. “Do you think?” “A little grim-looking, but he embodied the character.” “Mmm.” “Ooh donut decorations! Let’s go in here.”
Growing up, every Christmas Eve, my sisters and I dragged our mattresses into the living room to sleep next to the tree, hoping to catch a glimpse of Santa. Every year, my mother put presents out without waking us, and evidently spent her weekends training in the art of ninjutsu.
What started as a stakeout became one of our few family traditions. We carried on the routine into our 20s. In the mornings we ate toast on the lilos and made fun of each other’s bed hair and tiny eyes. It was a gentle start to a complicated day; one that involved multiple locations and tense handovers at our father’s house, glazed meats on full stomachs, and the perpetual feeling that we were letting someone down.
Mum saved up her modest salary to shower us with Christmas presents: Polly Pockets and My Little Pony and accessories for our Cabbage Patch dolls. I asked her recently if she felt robbed, handing over the credit to a mythical, notably absent man. She said no.
It was a small price to pay for her four daughters laughing themselves to sleep under the fairy lights. “Mind you, going to see Santa at the shopping centre wasn’t a regular occurrence,” she said. “You do that once.” “Why is that?” “That was when you were expected to sit on his lap!”
I don’t remember seeing Santa at the shopping centre when I was a child, though I vividly recall a chance meeting in December 2020.
I was sitting alone in an Italian family restaurant. The walls were crowded with photos of race cars and people who were famous in the 90s. A large laminated menu sat atop the the red-and-white plastic tablecloth. A staff member was tackling an acoustic cover of All I Want for Christmas and a man dressed as Santa was moving through the tables. His beard and hair were oiled and pearly white, his handlebar moustache curled distinctly at the edges. His suit was tailored and his eyes twinkled navy blue.
He was an Alpha Santa, one who I assumed signed his emails “Nicky boy” year round, though his name is Dennis.
“And who are you meeting?” he asked me. “A friend,” I smiled. “A boyfriend?” Time slowed painfully as the singer warbled through the high note. “Nope.” “Ho ho ho! Well then, you might like a photo with Santa.” ‘I’m OK, thanks.” “Excuse me!” he signalled a passing waiter and took my phone from the table with a white gloved hand. “Would you take a photo of me and this lovely lady?” I smiled at the family at the next table; two young kids, a parent and a grandparent.
The Santa squeezed in beside me on the bench seat and placed my head into the crook of his neck. “Something to make Mrs Claus jealous!” he said. I straightened up and laughed for the camera. He repeated the manoeuvre, like he was adjusting a doll, this time holding me in place with his arm around my shoulder. The family at the next table laughed along with us.
I wish I’d been brave and told him to stop, or that I was deeply uncomfortable, or made some withering remark layered enough to protect the kids’ image of him, but there we were. When my friend arrived I burst into tears.
The going rate for seasonal Santa work is $30 an hour.
They wear head-to-toe polyester in the Australian summer while enduring hours of screaming, hyperventilating children. I assume most of them aren’t doing it to wield power over women and children. They’re giving back to their communities and earning a bit of extra cash while they’re at it.
But we endow them with significantly more moral authority than the Easter Bunny, who doesn’t speak and hands out chocolate for no apparent reason, who we love.
My favourite part of the Santa story never had anything to do with the man himself – a pathological home intruder with a God complex. The magic lived in the night before his arrival and the morning after it; in the trail of mince pie crumbs and presence of my sisters, our shared dream hanging in the air like a vine. My mother in her terry-towelling dressing gown, her face aglow.
Ashe Davenport is a writer and author
