Rifles & Reindeer

When it comes to mall Santas, I tend to overlook the individuals under the red suits and see only the Christmas figurehead, that boisterous, jolly reminder of the fact that, soon, I’ll be unwrapping the presents that I’ve dictated people buy me. I suppose my underlying notion is that the individuals spending their free days or nights dressed up like an overweight gift-bearer are looking for spare cash or ways to knock off a few hours of a community service sentencing. The idea that some people do it for other reasons — personal enjoyment, for instance — is lost on me.

That being said, it’s one thing to go in and simply dress up as what might as well be a large painted bullseye for remarking teenagers or shopping-weary parents; it’s another thing entirely when the man stepping into the shiny black boots and tomato-colored pants dedicates himself to the role.

The other day I was reading on the CNN website a profile of something called The Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas. The group, more than 300 strong, consists of men who believe in growing genuine Santa beards rather than rely on the elastic-banded, coarse kind so often pulled down by children. The men consist mostly of retirees, people having put in their time at normal jobs that conjure up images of the American heartland — a grocery store worker, say, or a train conductor. For only twenty-five dollars a year, all a person had to do was grow a beard and he was in.

In addition to the group as a whole, the article profiled three FORBS members who had had interesting experiences in the course of their years spent lying to children each December.

Of the three profiles, the first one I read really wasn’t all that impressive. The man had been a FORBS Santa for seven years straight, and while he actually did make little wooden toys for children, it felt cutesy and pedestrian. Anyone could do that, I thought. He sort of made up for it when his “wacky Santa memory” turned out to be him waking from a nap during a slow day at the mall to a parent telling her child that, no, Santa was not dead. But still.

The next two offered more promise.

One Santa, at sixty-two years old, was a retired LA County deputy sheriff, a fact which, by itself, filled me with ideas, but when I read that his interesting fact labeled him an expert witness in dog and cockfighting cases, it made me envision him as the protagonist in a poorly-written primetime TV show. The episode playing in my head had him receiving an emergency call in the middle of little Sally’s request for Butterscotch the Electronic Pony and having to rush off to give his expert testimony while still dressed in his jingling red jacket. “Kringle,” the show might be called or “Law and Order: Santa Victim Unit.”

The third profile was of a man in his mid-fifties, a former utility company lineman who told about the time a child asked him in the same sitting for both a BB gun as well as a chainsaw. In his pockets he carries coins that have sides reading “naughty” and “nice,” a detail, odd at best, made all the more uncomfortable by my lingering question of whether or not he carries them around all year long. Referring to someone as naughty in the period from the day after Thanksgiving to Christmas morning is spirited and festive; any other time of the year, it’s just creepy and tends to brand a person something of a pervert.

What disturbed me most was the last fact my eyes happened to catch. A self-described gun hobbyist, the man admitted to working on what the article referred to as a “candy-cane rifle.” I wouldn’t exactly call myself an expert on the particulars of Santa Claus, but I’ve never picked up on his need for weaponry. Not once have I read about Santa’s hunting habits, plugging walruses from the warmth of his North Pole cottage. I haven’t gleaned from Christmas cards or carols his bundling up with Sprinkles the Elf to track and bring down a reindeer, dragging it back to the workshops so that Mrs. Claus can help dress and store the meat, maybe to feed the army of elves once toy production gets into full swing.

It was disturbing to think of Santa as a cold-blooded killer. But what if this man, this impostor with nothing to his credibility but a genuine beard and a twenty-five dollar online certification, had more sinister plans? I combed the article for something like a name or a location, but there was nothing about any of the unnamed men operating in what could have been any mall in the United States. It might not have been as frightening had the man just been into guns; guns are distinctive and stand out against a crowd of children and white snow. But a candy-cane? There wouldn’t be any warning, and I go to malls.

As I sit here, this Christmas season is coming to a close, and while my shopping is done for now, there’s always next year. I suppose I’ll have to start paying more attention to the men on whose laps the local children sit and make their Christmas wishes. Not only will I be looking for a Santa’s surprised face as a child tugs on what will turn out to be his genuine beard, but also for the shiny glint of a naughty coin, followed by the rise of a Santa as he grasps in his hands a four-foot candy-cane and stares down the stem as if taking aim. And while people around me think merrily of decking the halls, I’ll be planning, worried and at the ready, to hit the deck.