December 3, 2009
Thursday

I little bit fraid of Santa Claus
                 — Lynn DeAngelis, b. 1985
                      American scientist, remark made in 1987 at Capital City Mall, Camp Hill, PA

This afternoon, despite the hazards of the season, I spent some time at the Park City Center just off Route 30 near Route 283 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, because today was a haircut day. I drive 40 miles to a hairdresser outside Lancaster who is creative and hip and who understands my hair and my inability to do much with it myself. I often go on Thursdays, after my women’s spiritual growth study group, and make a gallivanting day of it.

Park City has everything we’ve come to expect in the modern suburban shopping mall. It’s laid out in spokes that surround a central court whose peaked and translucent roof rises like a circus tent. Each spoke is anchored by a large department store, and dozens of smaller shops and freestanding kiosks fill each hallway. There isn’t anything at Park City that you can’t get in Harrisburg, or King of Prussia, or Timonium, Maryland, or online, even. (Well, okay, King of Prussia has a Tiffany’s, and Timonium has a Crane & Co.,  but I’m not in the market right now for anything in either store.) The visit to Park City today was more a writer’s people watching expedition than a shopping trip.

As I expected, there wasn’t anything in the mall shops that I actually wanted to buy. And as one might also expect at this time of year, Santa Claus was holding court at center court. I got a amall Cinnabon and a carton of milk and sat down to watch.

Some years ago the Chicago Tribune asked readers to send in pictures that captured not the joy and wonder of their children visiting Santa, but the terror. The feature proved endlessly amusing and popular and has become a staple of the holiday season, even giving rise to a hardbound book.  Here’s last year’s gallery, and one from the Palm Beach Sun Sentinal.

Readers of this space might remember that I have my own Scared of Santa photo, seen at left. I told the story of this traumatic moment in Lynn’s life in 2007, and followed up with a post about the flak I’d taken from readers for being such a cruel mother, not for forcing my child to sit on the lap of a stranger, but for always maintaining that Snata Claus is a myth and not a reality. (Sorry if I just ruined anybody’s life.)

It wasn’t crowded in the mall today, but there nevertheless was a short line to see Santa and get your picture taken with him. In the half hour that I spent at a nearby table I didn’t see anything that might wind up in a Scared of Santa gallery. I saw curiosity in some of the children being presented, boredom or disinterest in others, now and again some genuine delight.

I remembered an incident that Lynn and I witnessed at a mall when she was in middle school, I think. We were shopping together on an ordinary weekenight during this season, and maybe it was the last time she sat for a picture with Santa. We’d gotten some refreshments — Auntie Anne’s pretzels, probably — and were sitting on a bench enjoying them. We saw a woman striding purposefully through the mall in the direction of center court and the Santa picture setup, trailed by a boy of about seven or so who was wailing, “Mommy, Mommy! I’m sorry! Please don’t tell Santa! PLEASE don’t tell Santa! I’ll be good!”

If ever there was a cruel mother, that was one. That kid would be twenty or so now. I wonder if he has a therapist yet.

From the Archives:
December 3, 2004 — Downsizing: “Not every room in your house has to say Merry Christmas,” advised a stress-reduction article I read once. Right now there’s a fully-decorated tree and an Advent wreath on a tall plant stand in just one room, and that’s it. Can that be enough?

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