I was Mrs Claus - AMA

[MadameSzyszkoBohusz]

Just finished a six week long stint in Santa's Grotto. Go on - AMA.

Strangest gift request?

A shredder. From an 8 year old boy.

How do you deal with children who ask for totally unlikely gifts?

Funniest moment

Santa was very good. He's got one eye on eve parents the whole time, watching out for any frantic head shaking or "WTACTUALFUCK" looks. Anything very expensive or inappropriate, he'd explain that Santa didn't deliver "high value electrical items", and ask what else was their list.

Requests for puppies/kitties/unicorns he explained, - very kindly - that we no longer deliver live animals, which allowed me to do a bit on them being very hard to wrap, and even harder to stuff down a chimney; and offered a toy version of whatever animal they were after.

What was Mrs Claus's role (never been to see a santa with a Mrs there!) - what did you do?

It's quite hard to explain, but we all got a laugh out of Santa mishearing a little boy's name as "Turnip", and his family just going along with it.

We were very entertained by the idea of the same young man, in 20 years time, bringing a partner home for Christmas for the first time and having to explain why his whole family referred to him as their "little Christmas Turnip."

Mrs Claus is basically straight man and warm up act to Mr Claus. He's the one they're all there to see - Mrs Claus is basically there to do the whole: "are you all ready to see Santa?! I SAID: ARE YOU ALL READY TO SEE SANTA?!!" bit.

In my case, I was also there to handle any "difficult" children, as I've a bit of a knack for that.

That's lovely - I think I would have been keener on visiting Santa myself as a child, if there had been a Mrs Claus around too.

I thought this was going to be a"why I divorced santa" thread and wondered who got the elves..

I did a lot of calming of scared children actually @SockGoddess - spent a lot of time on my knees on the floor, gently persuading freaked out children that it's ok, he's just a silly Santa, he would never hurt you!

I can do one from that POV if you'd like?

Yes 😁

What do you do the rest of the year?

How many vomming kids?

Whatever other acting work I can get - mainly TIE (Theatre In Education) stuff, corporate training videos, and teaching drama. I usually manage at least one touring production, but I don't like to be away from my own kids for too long.

None this year! Loads of coughs and colds - no one was left healthy in the grotto by the end of it, except Santa, bizarrely, I think he may actually be magic - but no vomming, thank god.