I met Santa

Last night I was in Aldi and Santa came walking by. He was legit grocery shopping. Had the pants and boots but was down to a white shirt and green tweed vest up top, as it’s not very cold here.

I let him walk by in the mostly empty store but when he got to the end of the aisle I decided I should pipe up. I went to say a confident “Merry Christmas, Santa” but somehow when I said it I felt like I was six years old and whistling it through missing front teeth. He turned around, nodded, and said “Thank you. Merry Christmas.” and then added, “You’ve made the nice list.”

As I was checking out I asked the cashier if she had seen Santa and she thought I was just messing around, but right then he appeared over her shoulder by the frozen foods and I told her to look. The other employees were already all aflutter and going to get pictures with him. When they got back my cashier was through checking me out and one of the other girls offered to cover her register so she could go get a photo too. I bagged my groceries and went out to the lot.

When I took my cart back to the corral Santa was walking out the door. I spoke again and asked him if I could take a photo with him and he said of course. He put his sack (grocery sack, that is) down and as I was getting my phone out I stuttered something about it being kind of magical seeing Santa out just doing his business. See, I haven’t felt very Christmasy at all this year, but that interaction kind of put all the magic back for a minute. We took our photo and he pulled something out of his pocket and put it in my hand. As he did he said a very Santa thing.

“Y’know, you spend all year planning for six weeks of pure joy.”

We said goodbye and went to our cars. I got in my car and looked at what was in my hand. It was a gold coin that says “I met Santa/I made the Nice List.”

I’m not 100% convinced that wasn’t the real Santa Claus.

Merry Christmas, y’all.

Edit: this is the photo I snuck right before six year old me piped up from inside my body.