Santa Comes Early

This last weekend, I had the chance to be Santa Clause.

One of Masa's students - Masa is Yuki's boyfriend and owner of a small English school - was having a Christmas party, and the parents wanted a Santa to come and surprise the kids. Masa was busy, so he asked me to do it, and I gladly agreed.

Last Wednesday, Yuki brought over the costume for me to try on. Predictably, I was nowhere near fat enough to pull off a real Santa, so we improvised. Using the ties for my yukata, I tied a huge pillow around my torso. This looked pretty good, but left me a little lopsided, so I took my Rilakkuma pillow and stuffed it down the back of my pants to give me a big butt. Perfect! One poorly attached beard and some fake eyebrows and I was ready for the show.

The actual party was on Saturday. That morning, I practiced my Santa voice in the shower - the acoustics are good for something other than singing, it turns out. I used the deepest voice I could muster and discovered that, with a little Sean Connery thrown in (he is an epitome of masculinity, after all), it was passable to the non-native ear.

We had some extra time on the way to the party, so when we saw a hill lit up with lights, we decided to stop. I threw on my beard and my swagger, and hammed it up the best I could. Yuki gave me some sleigh bells that I attached to my shoe, so that I jingled with every step I took. There were lots of kids walking around with their parents, and both children and adults alike turned and stared, exclaiming "Santa-san!". Christmas is actually popular here in its own way, but I don't think they have the exposure to fake Santa's that we do in the States. Thus, I think I made quite a spectacle of myself. One little girl, probably 4 years old, was staring at me with such huge little eyes, I had to turn and talk to her, asking if she had been a good little girl, etc. Yuki translated for me. Even some teenagers were following me around, taking pictures with their cell phones. I got quite a kick out of it, and would randomly start talking in a loud voice, such things as "Oh, I wish Rudolf could have come!" "That's a mighty nice tree!" "That castle is nice, but mine is a little bigger", etc. In truth, I could have said anything, recited my grocery list, and it would have had about the same effect, I think. Yuki was laughing so hard she could barely walk.

After waddling back down the hill, we headed to the party. The party was being held at golf club- nice and public! We walked in the entrance and there two unrelated parties being held in side rooms. The parents had prepared a pile of presents, labeled with names, and left them by the door. After the children were made aware of my presence, they came barrelling into the room and skidded to a stop a food away from me, suddenly not so sure if they could hug so strange a personage. I gave a jolly laugh, said a few things, and Yuki translated. There were 7 families there, and quite a few kids. All the moms had their cameras out, snapping pictures, while at least 1 dad had his video camera, catching it all on tape from the first "ho, ho, ho". I called the kids names out, one by one (muddling more than a few, I'm sure) and handed them their presents. I did my best to make a production of it, pretending that some of the bigger presents were too heavy for me to lift. After one particularly ridiculous effort, I stood doubled over, pretending to catch my breath from the effort. This adorable little boy ("I'm 6 years old!") and his older companion were looking at me with the utmost consternation, asking over and over, "Daijoubu, Santa-san? Santa-san, daiijoubu?!" ("Are you ok, Santa? Santa, are you ok?!"). I reassured them, but since I did so in English, they remained quite concerned.

Afterward, we went to a private house to give presents to the children who couldn't come to the party because one of them was sick. They were older children, but seemed to like it a lot anyway. It was fun.

Afterward, we went to Masa's school to pick him up for dinner. I took off my costume. I thought the "hidden Santa" was pretty funny, so I took a picture:

Cheers,

Santa Baer