Hanging up my bells

My last week in the grotto was as crazy as ever.

What with the snow pelting down, we all thought people would be deterred from the shopping centre but the buggies were rampant.

One even took a big chunk of the grotto door with it, as it left.

And countless people wanted their buggies in the photo with their children, which looked utterly ridiculous.
Before entering the grotto several parents also took to asking me if their buggies would be ok round the corner. Did they think I was psychic or security?

My job has involved multitasking, but not that much.

In this final week we were also given some “advice” - about the grotto that is.
As several people told us how the open grotto ruined the magic or Christmas and the mystery of Santa, I decided it best to let them rattle on until they felt better.

They didn’t understand that we just worked there and I didn’t understand why they cared.

The week also ended with a boy I’d seen countless times, making a comeback. The first time I saw him, his parents were nowhere to be seen and despite not speaking English, he was content enough sitting next to Santa. Now his picture appeared again on the computer screen, with one noticeable difference. This time he was dressed as a girl!

The same man has watched us from the same sofa every day, and I had my first star-struck grotto moment by the first vaguely famous person I met on my penultimate day as an elf.

At the beginning of the week the snow chucked it down so hard, the shopping centre closed two hours early. Unfortunately this happened just as the grotto had just closed for the day, and stranded without a car, one kind elf gave another two, including me, a lift part way home.

I was taken pity on and spent the night at a very good friend’s house, and as I got a lift back to work with fellow elf in the same clothes, it was as if the day had never ended.

We started saying our goodbyes to elves on the Tuesday and the elf who had given me the lift laughed as he had five minutes left and I had five minutes plus another ten-hour day to come.

To my amusement it turned out he just couldn’t get enough of the grotto and appeared half way through the following day to take over someone else’s shift.

“We’ll finish it together,” he said.

And so we did, but no day, even a last day would be complete without an abusive family who were adamant they were getting into the grotto despite it being two minutes before the end of the day and not having a ticket.

This time I didn’t mind finishing ten minutes later, well not as much, because I was soon to leave the grotto forever.

There was a tinge of sadness as I hugged my fellow elves goodbye and we vowed to meet up in the New Year.

It felt like we’d been through a lot together.

Despite usually feeling exhausted at the end of the day I was the most energetic I’d been and after jumping up and down a few times I ran off into the distance, well into Banana Republic at least.

An elf is just for Christmas after all.