Santa Broke My Heart

This is the Santa in my life. We have gone to see him every year since the kids were born. Heck, even before Camden was born I went to him for his   Merry Christmas... because I swear he was really magical.

I know... y'all think I am missing a screw or twelve now... but I have to tell you why I knew he was magical.


One year when I was a teen... late teens... I had gone to the mall for the night with one of my girlfriends. Late holiday shopping and of course we stopped to see the real Santa we had chillin' in our mall. I mean, look at him!  He is totally the real deal!

We talked with him for a couple minutes, we got our big Christmas hugs and turned for just a moment and when we turned back around he was gone. Disappeared. Not like he walked away, or went into a back room at the mall because there were no places for him to "hide" in this area... It was like he used his Santa magic and was just gone... off into the night sky.   I know, I sound like a little kid!


But this guy was the real deal.

Last year out local news featured Donald Mills, also known to our kids as Santa, and how a local Doctor basically gave him the gift of hearing back. He had gone through hearing loss over the years, and through the kindness of their hearts they helped him.  Again, I cried!


Well even though I think it is way too early for Santa to be in the mall, he is back all set up for our Holiday season, and when my husband walked by him this weekend he was stopped dead in his tracks because our real magical Santa Claus was gone!


I went into a full blown panic when he told me.

To the point that I actually went to the mall's Facebook page to see where my Santa had gone!

He is gone... back to South Carolina, where he once told me he was from... never to return, and I think a little bit of my heart broke when I found out. He has been the Santa in that mall since I was a kid, and normally mall Santa's are strange, creepy, not real... but not him... He was really Santa.

I know it sounds dramatic and all, but I think I am most upset because my kids won't get to know him as Santa as I did... He was just the perfect Santa.

Rumor on the street is that you can get an address for him at the Santa photo booth in the mall and write him letters, so I think I am going to do that with the kids. 

And yes, I totally shed a tear as I wrote this.  Go ahead! Make fun of me!