In my town, most of the men over the age of 65 look like Santa. Upon moving here in July, my first inclination was that Santa was on vacation. It is a resort town, after all. The summer turned to fall, and the leaves fell and browned. The tourists left. Santa sightings continued on a regular basis. Clearly my Santas are residents.

As the population here is rather insignificant, surely the competition for seasonal Santa work is pretty stiff.  There are two malls in our village. Both are pretty sad, but one is clearly fairing better than the other. The thriving mall features a Santa of such incredibly natural likeness he made me believe a sleigh and reindeer were on the roof ready to whisk him away at a touch of his nose. In the other mall, Santa is a guy wearing a fake, shiny satiny beard and fat suit. I look more like Santa than he does. Clearly, this mall has fallen into such a shameful state that no self-respecting guy who looks like Santa will even enter the building.

The appearance of fake Santa is just a greater symptom of this mall’s demise. A last chance, all sales final Dillard’s outlet store is the anchoring attraction. Other stores include a broad array of specialty interests. Fashion Latina features only the lower half of manikins with pants stretched so tightly you are relieved they never have to breathe or move. Diametrically opposed to the sexy booty store, there is Totally Christian Karate aka TCK. Instead of traditional belt colors, techniques are identified with a scriptural word or concept and enhanced with required bible study. Then there’s Dollar Tree. Yes, you read that correctly, Dollar Tree in the mall. If I owned this mall, I would hightail it over to the other mall, plop onto real Santa’s lap and ask him to make Nordstrom and Saks 5^th Ave anchor in my mall and bring all the high-end fashionista stores with them. It’s current state clearly indicates the mall owners are entrenched on the naughty list. They can’t even attract Santa.

I went to the real Santa and placed my three Christmas wishes before him. He promised he would grant one. The other two he will do the best he can. Every time I see townie Santas, it will just remind me that real Santa is working on my wishes. Who needs TCK, when Santa is ready to whoop ass?