Christmas In July |

While everyone else was busy this week getting ready for weekend excursions, barbeques, and fireworks, many of us in the mall industry were forced to start our preparations for another holiday…Christmas. And believe me, Christmas in July is not as fun as it sounds. In fact, it’s not fun at all.

Yes, it’s that magical time of year where we must figure out where Santa’s winter home will be, and on what day in November we should crane in the 45-Foot Christmas tree. We need to make sure Santa’s contract and travel arrangements are in order, as well as prepare for the hiring and drug tests of his elves. And we must start coordinating Santa’s grand arrival at the mall, which in my case is the annual Holiday Parade of Lights.

That effing Holiday Parade of Lights.

Would someone please put me out of my misery and just shoot me now so I can get a season off?

Every year, right around this time, another part of my soul gets chipped away with a candy cane-themed icepick, and after being a marketing manager for nearly 18 years…there’s not much left to break apart.

In those 18 years, I have not missed one holiday season. Not one Black Friday. Not one Santa arrival. Not one Tree Lighting. Not one Holiday Retailer meeting. Not one Santa Breakfast. Not one Menorah Lighting. Not one shopper complaint. Not one retailer complaint.

Oh how I wish I could miss just one complaint.

I must admit, I often daydream of ways I could get a year off. Work-related injury. Unexpected pregnancy. Mental breakdown. Actually, the latter pretty much happens every year…but I still manage to show up for work.

Damn my good work ethic.

As a child, I used to absolutely love Christmas. And, as an only child, Christmas’ in the Dietlein household were wonderfully enchanted. The decorations, the food, the presents – it was truly the most wonderful time of the year!

Now, I just count the days from Thanksgiving to New Years, and pray I don’t kill anyone in-between.

In the beginning, I was actually excited to work at a mall during the holidays. I was looking forward to taking in all the festive décor whiling listening to traditional holiday tunes spill out through the mall’s overhead speakers. And, best of all, I’d have the opportunity to hobnob with Santa himself, and all of his lovable, adorable elves.

Yeah. Not so much.

Goes to show how stupid people are in their twenties. Santa and the elves were assholes. The overdone décor became nauseating after about a week. And, upon hearing Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas for the 180^th time, I was pretty much ready to throw myself off the roof of the shopping center’s 5-level parking garage.

A Mall Christmas Story

It all started In November 1999 – my very first year at Broadway Plaza shopping mall in Walnut Creek. I was a 25-year-old, overly-enthused marketing admin. My boss had told me to go upstairs to the management office and retrieve Santa for his grand arrival at the annual parade. We had Santa set up in the conference room, so he could relax and have a bite to eat before joining the crowd. When I arrived in the office, I noticed the conference room door was shut, so I knocked softly to see if Santa was ready. “Come in,” he said. And so I did. And there he was…in nothing but his underwear.

His eyes-how they twinkled, his dimples how merry!

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

Standing in super tight briefs and not much else,

I gasped when I saw him, trying not to throw up on myself!

As his stiff lower package, wrapped up tightly in red,

Soon let me know that my childhood was dead.

It only got worse from there.

In my first official year as a mall marketing manager, I was working at County East Mall in Antioch. Thrilled to be in control of my very first Christmas, I walked down to the center court of the mall to meet the Santa Set manager. She seemed a bit dazed and confused as I approached.

“Hi, how are you?” I asked.

“I was in an accident,” she said.

“Oh no! Are you alright?”

“No. I have shards of glass coming out of every orifice of my body. See?” She held up her shard-free hands.

“OOO-KAAAY…”

And that’s when I realized our set manager was high as a kite.

When she curled up in the fetal position on the cold, hard mall floor and went to sleep, I took the opportunity to call her employer, requesting reinforcement. They sent me the next best thing, an 18-year-old unwed mother who brought her two wild children to work with her every day. Not distracting at all. She did get along fairly well with Santa, as he was also 18 and one of her baby’s daddy.

On Christmas Eve of that year, we had to shut down Santa’s Village early…due to all the police activity. A teenage employee at the store adjacent to the Santa Set, which, at the time, was Wilson’s Leather, had found out her boyfriend, (slash store manager), was cheating on her. So, naturally, she called her father and sisters down to the store beat him up. (Naturally.) Dad and the girls ended up dragging the manager/boyfriend out of the store by his hair, and then started to punch the living daylights out of him in front of all the terrified children lined up to see Santa. Talk about a strong family unit.

The fight soon escalated, with others joining in, and like a cartoon snowball, the brawl got bigger and bigger, and rolled right through the Santa Set. I watched in horror as Santa lifted the child on his lap high up in the air as the hostile mob sailed by. He then placed the child on his red velvet chair and joined the chaos. The fortunate thing was, the fight started at the Entrance of the set and appropriately departed through the Exit, where representatives from the Antioch Police Department stood waiting.

I was devastated, crying along with all the children left waiting in line, who were left with visions of Santa being cuffed and placed in the back of a squad car, to dance through their heads.

“And Happy Therapy to all, from your team at County East Mall!”

The Homecoming

By the time I was promoted to marketing manager back at Broadway Plaza, I was a few years older, had my own therapist on retainer, and would arm myself with a flask, massive quantities of chocolate, and a Costco-sized jug of Ibuprofen whenever the holidays drew near. I had yet to be introduced to heavy duty prescription meds, but I had been introduced to Vodka, which did aid in numbing me through the oh-so-brutal holiday shopping season.

Through the years, I’ve seen it all…and seen too much. Way too much. Watching the movie Bad Santa, for me, is comparable to watching Platoon, as the holiday season is my Vietnam.

Drunk Santa’s. Racist Santa’s. Parolee Santa’s. Belligerent Santa’s. Older-than-Dirt-Barely-Mobile Santa’s. Introverted Santa’s. Perverted Santa’s. Female Santa’s. (This wasn’t always as acceptable as it is today.) Santa Claus may not really exist, but these shady characters sure did. I will say, the Santa screening process has come a long way over the years, so parents, you can take a sigh of relief. But…still…every once in a while, a mall Santa will pop up on the CNN newsfeed.

As if problem Santa’s weren’t bad enough…the elves were always 10-times worse.

EWA, or what I like to call Elves with Attitude, is a battle I continue to fight to this very day. (By the way, if you are hiring elves for your Santa set, try to avoid hiring either cohabitating elves or elves that are related…domestic disturbances in the Santa Set are a highly common occurrence.)

How the Grinch Stole…My Soul

I can remember the very instance when I realized that the holiday spirit had been completely drained from my body and the only soul that remained in me was the sole on my foot.

I had received a call from the set manager informing me Santa was not feeling well. I asked what was wrong with him. She said she’d call me back. When she did, a mere few minutes later, she told me, “Santa has blood in his urine and feces.”

“OOO-KAAAY…” Probably a little more information than I needed.

I slowly put on my coat and headed down to the set, feeling as if I had been summoned to the electric chair. When I arrived, there was a group of elves huddled outside the set, crying hysterically.

I remained unmoved.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Santa’s going to die,” one of the elves sobbed.

“How do you know that?”

“Because, my nana had blood in her urine and feces and now she’s dead! It was cancer.”

Wow…they are elves and doctors.

“Has Santa gone to a doctor?” I felt that even though the elves had already made the diagnosis, maybe a second opinion FROM A PROFESSIONAL might be warranted.

“No. But Santa said if he goes to the doctor, he’s going home to Chico and won’t be coming back. We can’t close the set. Our sales are awful.”

She wasn’t kidding about that. Although, the reasoning for the declining sales wasn’t a huge mystery.

“Where’s Santa now?”

“He’s in the set.”

I opened the door to Santa’s Village, and what I saw is something I will never, ever be able to unsee – believe me, I’ve tried. Santa was sitting on his red and white couch, crying, with a child on his lap, who was also crying. The elf taking the photos was crying as well. It was a scene right out of a horror movie.

Yet again, I remained unmoved.

I glanced over at the child’s stunned parents. The father gave me a look I’ll never forget, and even though he didn’t say anything out loud, his eyes were asking me, “What kind of shit show are you running here?”

With my eyes, I responded with, “The most effed up, shittiest kind of shit show you can imagine.”

We nodded our heads and I thought, good talk. I then closed the door and told the elves to shut this shit show down.

Readers note: Santa wasn’t dying. He had hemorrhoids. We provided him with a red and green donut-shaped pillow and he was back at work in a few days to finish out the season, with minor bouts of itching and burning…for all of us.

Miracle on Broadway Plaza Street

Despite all the not-so-merry mayhem, I do feel God himself finally felt the need to intervene in my search for the right Santa. He sent me Santa John, a sweet man and former undertaker from Florida. Like finding the right man, once you do so, you stop looking and lock it down, immediately. I guess God figured it was more important for me to find the right Santa as opposed to finding my Prince Charming, as Santa has ironically turned out to be a constant in my life. I semi-agree with God’s call, but do encourage him to intervene once again and send me Mr. Right, preferably before blood, urine and feces become involved.

Since I am single, and childless, (as people love to point out, especially during the holidays), the magic of the season is definitely lacking. And through the years, it has become so commercialized and frantic, it’s lost all meaning to me. Thanksgiving is now simply the day before Black Friday. In recent years, it has also become a big shopping day, and is now referred to as “Gray Thursday”. I’m sure Pilgrims everywhere are sitting at their long, beautifully decorated dinner table, flipping us the bird, rather than eating it.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

My holiday misery doesn’t start and end with Santa. There’s plenty more drama during this time of year that contributes to the steady decline of my mental and emotional welfare. Additionally, there is an impressive increase in my ability to say the “F” word consistently throughout the entirety of a season.

If retailer’s sales are bad during the season, it’s my fault. If you have trouble finding a parking space at the mall, it’s my fault. Have to wait ten minutes for a gift card? My fault. You’ve procrastinated until Christmas Eve to visit Santa and may not get to see him before the set closes…you guessed it, my fault. Traffic, my fault. Long lines, my fault. Rain and wind, my fault and my fault.

EVERYTHING IS MY EFFING FAULT. AND EVERYONE FEELS THE EFFING NEED TO EFFING TELL ME SO.

A few years ago, when the mall was undergoing a massive redevelopment, much of our holiday programming was displaced due to construction. I thought I was given a reprieve for the year due to this, but sadly, I was not. And I still managed to piss people off left and right. For instance, I needed to move the annual Menorah Lighting to a location off property. I worked with the City of Walnut Creek to move this special event to a nearby park. Do you think I was thanked for going out of my way to do this, (which I did not need to do, by the way)? Nope. Someone called and said, “You are everything that is wrong with the world. How dare you try to push the Jews out!” I gently tried to explain that I was merely trying to push the Jews to a location where there was less of a chance they get hit by a dangling overhead steel beam. But, nobody wanted to hear to that. Instead, it was easier for someone to accuse me of something as awful as Genocide, than admit I had merely moved them for their own safety.

That same year, we didn’t have a home for Santa. There was not one location throughout the entire property to put him, so we were unable to offer Santa Photos during the season. Because of this, I’m pretty sure all the moms in the East Bay banded together and put a hit out on my head. After all, I had apparently canceled Christmas and it was way too much effort for them to drive to the town 15 minutes down the road and see Santa at a neighboring mall. Nope. Everyone was just so angry at me. I have never been yelled at, chastised and threatened so much in my life…and I live in Vallejo.

One mother told me her twelve year old son had come to Broadway Plaza to see Santa every year…and now what were they going to do? I wanted to respond by suggesting she have an honest conversation with her son about who the real Santa is, but I knew I couldn’t say that. If anything, as I’m told, time and time again, I don’t have children so I don’t understand. Well, I kind of did understand that this particular kid was going to be tormented through high school if he still believed in Santa at the tender age of 14. But again…what do I know? I’m not a mother. I’m just an evil marketing manager set to ruin everyone’s holiday season…one way or another.

And then there’s the Holiday Parade of Lights…that effing Holiday Parade of Lights.

Mobs of angry children and even angrier parents. Creepy clowns that haunt my dreams. Horseshit all along the street. Diva entertainers who treat me like garbage…

I’m sorry, I can’t go on. I…just…can’t.

It’s A Wonderful Life?

The only holiday tradition I still enjoy taking part in is going to Midnight Mass. It’s weird, because as the clock strikes twelve, I’m overcome by the true meaning of Christmas. But it’s brief, and soon replaced by an overwhelming feeling of sadness, as yet another holiday season has bit the dust, leaving me slightly more broken than I was the year before.

Christmas Day is always low key, as I know I must be back at work bright and early the next day to face all the crazy after-Christmas shoppers. These are those individuals who are enraged because all they got for Christmas was a crappy sweater and some body lotion…and it’s my fault the stores weren’t open earlier for them to start the customary return process.

‘Tis The Season

The picture below was taken of me and Santa John last year, during the holiday parade. I actually love this photo. I especially like the black and white effects because it feels a little Capra-esque. The white reflects the innocence of Christmas, and Santa’s beard, which is as white as snow. And the black…well, it captures the dark, empty, vacant, shadowy, black hole that is now in the place of where my soul used to be.