The Real Santa!

Today I went to a local library as Santa Claus to greet the children there. Many of the children told me what they wanted for Christmas including Anna and Elsa dolls, legos and remote controlled trucks among other things. 

Some of them asked me very direct questions, such as is Rudolph real and does his nose really glow and why. I told them Rudolph was indeed real, and asked if they had ever watched those shows about those deep sea fish that glowed in the dark deep or the one with the dangling glowing thing like in "Finding Nemo". I explained they were real and glowed because of a good bacteria that caused the glow, and that is just why Rudolph's nose glows. They were satisfied.

But one of the children sat on my knee and looked up at me with bright piercing blue eyes and said, “Santa, I know that you can’t be everywhere at once so you have lots of helpers.  Last year I saw one of your helpers, and he was pretty good. But it’s so nice to have the real Santa here this year!”  My eyes started to get a little misty and I reached down and gave her a big hug.  Afterward her mother came up to me, and with tears in her eyes said, “you don’t know how much that means to her, because all she has talked about this year is that she was going to see Santa’s helper and that she would never see the real Santa.” She was so pleased that her daughter knew that she had finally seen the real Santa!

Being Santa is a big responsibility!