Flippyshark IS Santa Claus!

[flippyshark]

In addition to my usual jobs (fake scientist representing Kodak, tour guide on The Great Movie Ride and the Backlot Tour) I spent a good chunk of the last couple of weeks at a third job - Santa!

I was called by a friend who handles freelance actors for local resorts. She needed an emergency fill-in Santa for the enormous Gaylord Palms mega-resort. I got her call on Friday night and was sitting on the big red-velvet-covered Santa throne the very next day.

The Gaylord Palms is an impressive resort, located just across I-4 from Walt Disney World. It features a huge indoor atrium with several Florida-themed areas; Everglades, Key West, St. Augustine, among others. There are shops and restaurants, live alligators, waterfalls, a spanish fortress, and soon, a miniature golf course. For the holidays, they set up a huge ice sculpture village in their convention center. ($30 just to go see it, though.) The convention hall is kept at 9 degrees, which means that, even walking by the OUTSIDE of the building, you get a chill. Not kidding!

In the central atrium, they have a large stage set up for hourly Christmas shows, complete with singing elves, tree-lighting ceremonies, the works. My Santa throne was located at the top of a staircase above the stage, below a forty foot tall christmas tree. Pretty impressive, as it should be, seeing as resort guests are paying $200-$600 bucks a night to be there.

I was well compensated for my time there, and I enjoyed playing the role for a couple of weeks, though I might have gone a little crazy if I had done it much longer. It takes some energy to stay jolly, warm and brimful of Christmas spirit for nine hours a day.

When I first stepped out into the public area in costume, I was an instant celebrity. Kids came running, adults smiled and told me they had been good all year, people wanted my autograph. It was kind of like being a rock star, without all the sex and drugs.

It was also a trip to have people paying big bucks to buy pictures of me, albeit with their kids. The photographers worked for a third party vendor called Freeze Frame. They were nice, but too frequently, they had technical problems, and several upset parents lost pictures or had to do numerous retakes. The parents took all of their frustrations out on the camera crew, but, as Santa, I was golden. Everyone treated me like I really was keeping a list. (A few adult guests sat on Santa's lap and made passes.)

Strangest encounter: On my first day, the resort was hosting a big American Idol style audition for singers and models. There were hundreds of wannabes all over the place. Some of them came up to see Santa. Sometime after lunch, I was visited by two young girls, I'm guessing they were fifteen or so. They were very obviously in the model competition. They walked up and smiled, and I asked the first one what she wanted for Christmas. She bashfully pointed to the other girl and coyly said,"Her," then blushed.

I really didn't know how to respond to that one. I indicated the other girl and said, "Well, there she is." I then turned to the second girl and said,"And what do you want?" and she gave the same reply, then they both blushed and laughed. I have no idea if they were seriously sapphic or if they had just decided it would be funny to tell Santa they were lesbians. In any case, they both sat on my lap and had their picture taken, and they bought several.

This would have been enough, but then, about two hours later, another pair of girls, also obviously model auditioners, came up and did the exact same thing! The conversation was slightly different this time.

"So, what do you want for Christmas?"

"Her." (blush, laugh)

"Hmmm. I'm not sure if my elves know how to make that."

I don't know that it was a perfect comeback, but it was an improvement on my previous reply. Anyway, they too bought lots of copies. Yeesh.

Other memorable things told to Santa:

Sad-faced little girl - "I want a puppy. My dog died."

"I want a snake. A real snake."

"I want a pony, and no, I do NOT mean a toy pony, I mean a real live pony!"

"I haven't been all that good, so you don't have to bring me anything."

"I want one of the sleigh bells off your sleigh." (This was from a three year old.)

One of my favorites, from a two year old:
"I want a square."

There were lots of others, of course, but this post is long enough for now. Have the best holiday ever, everyone!

Flippyshark

[DisneyFan25863]

I remember driving past the Gaylord resort on my way back to MCO...saying that thing is an "enormous mega-resort" is an understatement!

Oh, as for the Lesbian 15 year olds...if they are anything like 96% of the girls out here, yes, they were joking

Santa Mojo!

[wendybeth]

Too cool, Flippy! Not everyone gets to be the Santa-Man.

My daughter attended the annual signing Santa party at her ENT's office last week. She just got new digital hearing aids, which work extremely better than her old analog ones. Anyway, after the party she told me she knew that the Santa was in fact her SP's hubby- she recognised his voice. She assured me that she didn't clue in her Deaf friends, but of course that introduced a level of skepticism about the whole Santa thing, or so I thought. I told her that Jerry is an official Santa's helper, and he reports back to the Big Guy what all the kids say, as Santa is a bit busy this time of year. She gave me the 'well, duh' look and said "Geeze, mom- I figured out a long time ago that he can't go to all the cities and get his work done at the same time".

[Gn2Dlnd]

"I want a square."

I would have fallen off my Santa throne laughing!

[Boss Radio]

Flippyshark is my hero.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Awesome gig. I'm curious as to what kind of things you ad-libbed, especially in the face of "my dog died" situations. Did they give you some sort of Santa cram session or did you come up with lines yourself?

[Stan4dSteph]

Perhaps it was the name of the resort that rubbed off on them.

Gaylord Palms sounds like some sort of gay porn name.

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Awesome gig. I'm curious as to what kind of things you ad-libbed, especially in the face of "my dog died" situations. Did they give you some sort of Santa cram session or did you come up with lines yourself?

I got no training at all, other than a couple of minutes of tips from one of the other Santas as he changed costume before leaving his shift. (He pretty much told me to be nice, don't promise live animals or dangerous toys, and so on.) I was very much on my own, but, no problem.

I told the girl that her dog had loved her very much, was in a happy place now, and would be very happy if one day she had a new friend to take care of. (The Mom, standing nearby, gave a nod of approval to this answer, so I feel pretty confident that a puppy was in the offing.)

Some other stock answers: For very expensive things (iPods, X Boxes and so on) "I'll have to see if my elves have figured out how to make those yet." or "That's a very popular request this year. I hope I'll have enough to go around!" I tried to avoid promising the big ticket items directly, but these answers seemed to meet with an okay from all the kids I talked to.

Ponies and other exotic animals: "My elves are very good at making toy ponies, but real ones? They haven't quite figured that out yet." "Most of the ponies I know are very happy running out in the wild. They do like it when friends come to visit them, though." (That line worked well once or twice, but definitely not every time. One kid came back with,"I don't care, I want a pony at my house!" - Tomorrow morning is going to be a treat for her parents, I'm sure.)

For most cases, it was enough to nod and say,"Well, that sounds like an excellent idea!" or "Wouldn't that be fun! I'll let my elves know right away."

Yes, two boys asked for BB guns, and I gently indicated that I would prefer to get them something safer. (I fought back the urge to give them the classic "You'll put an eye out" line.) In both cases, the parents had warned me ahead of time that this is what they would ask for, and requested that I break the bad news gently. Both of them seemed content enough with this.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I'm very impressed, Flippy! Seems like you had it down pat. It's make me realize that I would make a very poor Santa.

[Promo-Man]

Flippyshark now that you have been bitten by the Santa Bug I hope that you will find your way to greatness. I did 14 days as Santa at what was then known as The Orange Fair Mall many years ago. Now I portray Santa every year. I am a graduate of the International University of Santa Claus. I am also a member of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santa’s