For years now, since I was in high school I’ve been trying to help out in my community in anyway I could. It just so happens, that one way I do that, is by ‘being’ Santa at my local mall every Christmas. To some it may seem insignificant, but they have never seen the smiles and experienced the jubilation of kids faces when they sit on Santa’s lap. Of course, with the job, comes the oath of secrecy, especially since my town is so close knit, it’s like a game to find out just who Santa really is. Well, that where my story really starts, because last year, I chanced upon a really big surprise… It was nearing Christmas, so I routinely went to retrieve my Santa Costume to wash and iron it, but it was nowhere to be found. To anyone else, this would be just a strange occurrence, or a misplacing, but I was very keen on it’s placement, and for it to be missing, meant that someone had taken it. A frantic search erupted, but it was to know avail. Then I remembered how I became ‘Santa’ in the first instance, I was first an elf. How selfish of me to have kept the post to myself all these years… True enough, when walking through the mall a week later, I could hear the iconic laugh that I once bore, “Ho, ho, ho!” and two thoughts came instantly as I saw kids excitedly lining up to sit on Santa’s lap. The first is that you don’t have to be in a red and white costume to enjoy the true Christmas spirit, and secondly, that I really need a better hiding place!