Ho Ho Ho,

Tonnight I had the honour of filling in for a certain large gentleman in a red suit.
WHAT a night. The idea of a magician playing Father Christmas really makes sense when you're entertaining children from an infants AND junior school. The younger kids get to see Santa, while the older kids who may be self concious about being seen as childish can tell themselves (and parents) they are just there for the magic tricks.
I got the gig because one person on the PTA is a fellow performer, and another did an amazing job on my wedding flowers. (it pays to be outgoing and chatty it seems) The fee wasn't going to be something to retire on, and from that I had to buy props and consumables. I had a long think about what in my repertoire (and in things I wanted to learn) would work in a santa setting.

I was told I'd be playing to groups of about 12, me in a grotto formed from a gazebo and amazingly well decorated, and the children standing under an awning. I would only have 4 or 5 minutes with each group. This is a double edged sword, on one hand i wouldn't need much material, but then i also  would have less chance to use different  types of effects so there would be "something for everyone" there. Also i wouldn't have time to use my engaging personality (I hate saying that as it makes me feel arrogant, but I have to admit when I  perform close up people like me).

It felt strange being just a performer and not having to deal with the organizing and advertising, I'm not, in fact I felt quit guilty when i saw the amount of work  everyone else had put in, they did a fantastic job. The grotto was amazing and the presents for the children were all sorted and wrapped. I was very impressed by thier energy and their skill.

Watching santa films for inspiration I looked for common themes. As a child we left the big guy brandy, but apparently milk is the order of the day. Going through the lift of effects I came up with diminishing milk. IT's visual and easy to understand. The plot i used was how  Santa can magically reduce milk so he could drink the millions of glasses left out for him.


 Another magician had the amazing idea of using a change bag disguised as a Santa hat and coloured beads to show how santa chose good boys and girls. A lot of coloured or silver beads were to be put into the bag and ONE gold one, then the child would put their hand in the bag and get the gold one every time. I wanted to add my own spin on this and thought of using gold and silver bells (bells being a strong symbol in the movie "Polar Express". In the film a child is given a bell by Santa, this then go time thinking about GIVING the bells away. That would prove to expense as I was expecting 200 children. the mental path however led me to chocolate coins, our local shop supplied them in gold and silver, 50p a bag (which has 10 coins in) £10 of gold coins and a few silver coin bags and I was all set. I got a 99p santa hat with the intention of stripping off the fir and pom pom, to sew onto a red change bag, however in typical Dean luck the  hat fit perfectly over the bag and just needed a little tacking.

All the children were shown a pile of silver coins go into the hat and one  or two gold coins, they were told to take a coin out, hold it and not to look at it, then it was revealed they ALL had gold coins. Many kids looked straight away, but when i told then to take a coin and hold it over their hearts without looking at it, they all  obeys. An interesting bit of crowd handling and I need to think more about why this worked and how to use it in future. Everyone loved this effect, although one girl was tieried she'd get a silver coin :)

Over all the night went amazing well, mainly due to the effective team work in play. THe head master was thrilled and told me after wards that some of the "hard " kids decided they wanted to visit the  grotto after all :)
I  made a point of telling him how well the kids behaved and how effective his team is. THey all really were. Even the older kids took part and didn't blab of chalange santa :)
THe only thing i'd do different?  A better beard :)