Bad Santa

Last night at about 2:30am we were out on the patio of a bar having a beer or two when we see a guy in a full Santa suit and mask coming across the street. Christmas isn't quite the omnipresent extavanganza here as it is in North America. Some stores have Merry Christmas signs or trees in the window. But having lights and decortations in your home just isn't as integral to the celebration of Christmas as it is in North America. So it was sort of weird to see this random guy in a Santa suit walking around, especially in the middle of the night.

The reaction was hilarious. He'd go up to every table, people would freak out screaming and laughing, he'd kiss and hug everyone at the table, he'd bum a smoke from someone and then go on to the next table. The best was when he lit a smoke and was smoking it through his Santa mask. I really thought the beard was going to go up in flames at any moment.

But after he'd made the rounds of all the tables on the patio, he started going around again, asking for money "to give to poor children to buy them presents". And the mood completely changed. It was like, the illusion was shattered. It wasn't really Santa Claus, it was just some guy ask begging from change. Everyone reverted to the same tactics they always do to avoid giving to panhandlers, looking away, pleading lack of change, etc. Even the table next to us, four women that were like an over-the-hill drunken Argentine version of Sex in the City out on the town, who had greeted Santa with exclamations of Amor de mi vida!, went all cold on him.

So then Santa went away.