My whole family went out to dinner one evening just before Christmas. I was wearing my red bib overalls and a long sleeved white shirt with monogrammed initials, SC. As we walked in to Scipolini’s restaurant on a Tuesday night, there was a big party in one section, as I walked by I heard, “Santa, Santa, I know him, I know him “, I looked in on the party and there was an adult in an elf hat complete with ears, I yelled back, “Buddy, Buddy, I know you, I know you, ” this prompted all the children in the room to come running and all the adults to crack up laughing. I love it when adults relate to Santa as well. There were several children who came over to get coins while we waited to be seated. My little granddaughter Jocelyn would position herself between me and the other child as if to say “ this is my Santa “ , loved it.
Christmas eve. 3 visits that evening, including a local TV celebrity, the night was a resounding success. The first house comment was, “the guy we had last year was not 1/4 as good as you are, we want you next year”, the second house said “you are the best Santa we have EVER had in the 16 years that we have been doing this, we want you next year” this was the local TV celebrity saying this, at the 3rd house, same thing. The 3rd house actually sent me a note via e-mail and told me that they were going to forego a visit from Santa in 2016 because they didn’t want to ruin it for the children by not having me. I had explained to them that I would be in the east in 2015. Thank you all
So Christmas of 2014 came to an end and it was time to head out to our winter home in Mexico.
One evening we went to Playa Azul restaurant for dinner, as I’m eating my quesadilla con carne 4 women and a small boy came in. The boy was really staring at me. I gave him a wave. They went into the next room and I noticed he was talking to a woman who appeared to be his mom. One of the other women came out and told me his name was Caden and that he thought I was Santa. She said he was being extra good at dinner. I went in, pulled up a chair next to him and said “Hi Caden, how are you, are you being good?” We had a brief conversation because he had that look of awe on his face. I then showed him several pictures and elicited a promise from him that he would be a good boy for Mom. As I came back to sit down, several of the customers chimed in, “Great job Santa”. Before we left I said goodbye to him and got a handshake, or rather a finger shake from him. Life is good.
Mexico goes all out for Holy Week, Semana Santa. I was sitting down at Grace’s, our landlady for our campo, with the family and Little Annie, maybe 5, comes up to me and says, “Santa, tienes mas dulces?” Do you have more candy? Now this is a little girl who has had 3 operations on her chest area for heart problems. I said “uno momento” I went back to the coach and found some candy canes from Christmas. I had ordered 1000 of them and had maybe 300 left. I put them in a red bag and went back to the house. All the children saw the red bag and came over. Each child got 2 canes since they are the small ones. I then walked the campo and handed out the rest of the bag to other children. There were lots of photos taken.
So
visits with santa 