The Santa Claus SmackDown of 1977

This photo is the stuff of legend in my family. It shows my late Great Uncle Buddy being mobbed for candy canes in the Christmas of 1977. It happened at my elementary school after his daughter-in-law talked him into dressing up as Santa Claus and coming in to spread some additional cheer at the conclusion of our school Christmas production of "The Night Before Christmas" as the actors and actresses sang the final song.

What nobody predicted was that the children in the gymnasium would react as if they had been long suffering through a candy famine, flocking to Uncle Buddy and mobbing him as if they were about to draw their last sugar-deprived breaths. As he came through the back swinging gym doors and surprised the crowd with a roaring "Ho! Ho! Ho!", he was met with a sea of clamoring children who in mass exodus jolted from their seats next to their parents and were now scurrying over each other for whatever loot was to be found in Uncle Buddy Santa's velvet bag. As he tried to maneuver away from them, they chased him from the gym floor to the top of the bleachers (and I'm talking waaaaay high up at the top - it's a wonder that nobody was killed) and trampled him for treats. He actually had to fight kids off.  For candy canes! My brother says that all that he can remember is the "roar" of children as they engulfed him and my Mom says that the kids were like a "swarm" - both great words to describe the melee.

Look at this close-up. See how some of the kids have actually snatched ahold of him? 

It had turned all yuletide "The Lord of The Flies" up in there! 

Here are a couple more photos that my Dad dug up for you from the old family albums.
Unlike the photo above, they're all faded and blurry like they were shot from a grassy knoll.

Look at that kid at the very top above wearing the flouncy red and white get-up! I like how most of the adults are just walking away like "It's your battle to fight, Santa."

Looks like he's finally made it back down to flat ground again as evidenced by the manageable wee shorties surrounding him in the final shot. I bet the jolly old elf had the vapors by this point and his sack was a mere sweat rag.

Thank goodness I wasn't involved in the peppermint induced mob. I was up front on the stage, wearing a cardboard box wrapped to look like a Christmas present. No, I'm not kidding. My mom found photographic proof.

My first and only stage role. Blue turtleneck and blue tights. So 1977. 

I remember that I had to sit down next to the Christmas tree and stay silent and still as if I were an actual inanimate gift box. It was the director's way of allowing more kids to have roles in the play but I still thought that I was a bad-ass for being chosen.  My brother reports that he was the "sound department" and stood dazed in the stage wing, clutching his jingle bells as Uncle Buddy was ensnared. I'm pretty sure that our brush with stardom saved us from being trampled and killed that day. We were always weak and pampered children, never up for quick adrenaline rushes or stick candy moshes. Uncle Buddy's grandson, Marty was on stage too, dressed like a small mouse.

He could only stand there, helplessly wrenching his tail as the mob moved further and further up the bleachers, reducing his beloved grandfather to a bobbing buoy in a sea of children. Those bleachers were no place for tender mice or Christmas presents or little boys with jingle bells. We all knew it.

My Mom says that she remembers that Uncle Buddy's wife was absolutely terrified as it was happening - and Uncle Buddy saying afterwards that he was too - and that he couldn't get away from the kids, try as he might. They were both really shaken by the whole incident. Yay, Christmas.

Uncle Buddy Facts: He was a multi-millionaire who started out poor and made his fortune by building and renting out self-storage units and selling camper trailers. He used to sing Hank Williams songs all of the time and I can remember sing-yodeling along with him, "When she calls me sweeeet Daaaaaddy...such a beautiful dream.." He and his wife Edna had a big cactus garden, a beautiful home surrounded by the lake and a collie dog named Sport. He constantly chewed toothpicks and during the era of wide white belts, had quite the collection. He could cut a mean square dance and at Easter, he hosted egg hunts on his huge lawn where he would make sure that one "prize egg" was full of lots of folding money. Thus, the kids called him "Daddy Rabbit". He always did amazing card tricks and then one day, we realized that he was getting signals from his grandchildren to help him achieve such feats of magic. He was my grandmother's only brother. He never played Santa Claus again.

Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha