It was December 2004.
We had arrived early, very early to the Mall in order to beat the
lines. The kind of planning that new
parents do when trying to coordinate seasonal iconic activities with the time
of day the kids are most likely to behave.
The strategy had seemingly worked and we were fourth or fifth in line to see
Santa. We had arrived so early that guest of honor hadn’t yet made it to his throne. He was still over at the styling salon where
the ladies paid elf like attention to grooming his snow white whiskers.
The wait for Santa was starting to take it's toll on the girls
attention span, especially Sarah our 18 month old. Remember this was the pre elf-on-the-shelf era so
there were only so many, ‘you don’t want to be on the bad list’ threats that
could be used at the 11th hour.
Well along came Santa and to my surprise Santa ‘worked the crowd’ coming
down the line saying hi on his way to his place of honor.
This giant man, with coal black boots, velvet red pants and
broad suspenders over his Santa casualwear playful shirt. Sarah stood silent, not understanding exactly
what was going on. After Santa passed on
down the line Alex leaned in coaching Sarah, ‘Don’t you get it, that’s the guy
you have to be nice to!?!
Like many families in this area, we followed this Santa to
the various locals that he would visit each season. Such a wonderful gentle man. Year after year we added to our collection of pictures with Santa, never missing a year. One year we did call it close and squeaked in a visit around 3pm on the 24th. Fifteen years of collecting pictures and saying hi to the nicest man on the planet. We were sure to make our reservation this year, since Santa was now taking full advantage of technology of the internet and text based scheduling. 
Then we received the notice this week that that Santa had to travel
back to the North Pole due to a medical condition. Days later the note came out that the Big Guy
had passed on. For a person we spent on
a few minutes with each year, it was like some pure happiness had been taken
away. Happiness in big, broad
suspenders and white whiskers. Throughout north Texas posts of "RIP Santa" flooded social media. I'm not sure why, but that didn't sit well with me. I prefer to think of it as our city has been transformed into Sombertown and Kris Kringle has been temporally delayed by the Winter Warlock.
These are just few of the yearly Christmas pictures we collected
over the decade and a half of visiting The Big Guy. Pictures covering circa 2004 to 2016.
