Department Store Santa Confidential

by ERTEL GRAY
edited by ANDREW HICKS

Kris Kringle needs some straight Kahlua.

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I was a Department Store Santa during the hectic Christmas season of 1995. Value City was the store. For years, it’d held prime position as the face of the Lycoming Mall in Pennsylvania. Catering to the “low-income/useless crap on the cheap” demographic, Value City operated under the name “Gee Bee’s” before someone (presumably in a cheap suit), stood up in a board meeting, and said, “Look, we want to offer our customers value. Yet we want to imply that this is no mere store. So… Value Hut? Value Sovereign Nation? ValueTownXpress? Mmm…. how about Value City? Besides, what the fuck is a Gee Bee anyways? Do we really want our customers to associate our name with the song ‘Nights on Broadway’?”

The work wasn’t bad, really. I got stuck in the household accessories department, which — oddly — was filled with massive, massive amounts of African-themed knickknacks, vases, tribal masks, and so on. I was verbally reprimanded for being culturally insensitive for cracking a remark (to a black coworker, no less) along the lines of, “You got it lucky, dude. You work in the shoe department. Apparently, I wandered on to the set of Roots.” The black guy thought it was funny. My boss, Mr. Wunderlin (irony?), didn’t.

Wunderlin, around the time the entire store became a Winter Wunderlin (ha ha!), approached me to ask if I’d take on the assignment of Value City Santa Claus. My qualifications? I was slightly chubby at the time, white, and maybe just had a little “too much” dignity at the time. For six hours a night, I was forced to sit in a chair in a sweaty costume, getting groped by children with sweaty, sticky candy-cane hands. These little angels would yank at my fake beard, while I braved the time bomb that some kid would either, a) piss or shit him/herself on my lap, b) vomit profusely, or, c) all of the above simultaneously. It was as close to hell as I could be without actually going to hell.

Holiday Gift Ideas For the Giving Impaired

by ANDREW J HICKS
written December, 1993

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Andrew Hicks in 1993. We think he still owns that tie.

For lack of anything better to utilize space, I will now bring to you THE ANDREW HICKS INDEX OF LAST MINUTE CHRISTMAS GIFT-GIVING IDEAS VOLUME XXIII. If you’re anything like me, you now have two shopping days left until Christmas and haven’t even started your Christmas shopping yet. And, by December 23rd, the only things left in the stores are the 8-track recording of Barry Manilow Sings the Hits of Vanilla Ice and Santa Helper, a holiday variation on Hamburger Helper with reindeer meat substituted for ground beef.

Not to worry. With these six helpful hints, you’ll give your friends and family a Christmas they won’t soon forget. I can guarantee that!

• Give something practical. I recommend the new combination Ginsu knife/laser disc player/encyclopedia/potato fryer/water purifier/mini-blender (because “love is a mini-blendered thing!”)/Thigh Master.
• Most people prefer something you made yourself over an extravagant store-bought goods. What, you may ask, can I create on such short notice? Ever hear of the fine art of dryer lint sculpture?
• No one can have too many pairs of underwear. Nothing says lovin’ like Fruit of the Loom!
• For items over $30, leave the price tag on for that lavish appeal.
• Chances are, if you just wrap up one of the person’s old items he’s forgotten about and give it as a gift, he’ll think you bought it. Best of all, it doesn’t cost you a dime… if you use a free community newspaper to wrap it.
• If you’re planning on giving that special someone an all-expense paid trip, make sure it’s not an excursion to Beirut, Libya or downtown St. Louis.

And remember this: Even if you can’t find any last minute gift item to give them, most people will be willing to forgive you if you’ll show them how to program their VCR.