Sad Santa

Never before had Santa Claus worked so hard to give U.S. retailers a merry Christmas. Across the land merchants brought him into their towns, "straight from the North Pole," in sleds, cars and by parachute. By last week, it looked as if Santa had been almost done to death.

P: In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., several thousand children gathered at Stranahan Field to see Santa parachute from a plane hired by the Chamber of Commerce. As he floated down, the children screamed in terror; a gust of wind wafted Santa onto some power lines nearby (see cut). Unhurt, Santa was helped down, and began passing out candy.

P: In Gallipolis, Ohio, a Santa hired by local retailers parachuted for the town square, landed in the icy Ohio River.

P: In Chicago, the Santa of the merchants' State Street Council was paraded on a float into Soldier Field between the halves of a professional football game. A group of jeering teenagers began to pelt him with snowballs, hit him squarely in the face. As Santa exited, angrily shaking his fist, he moaned: "There's a dead spot in my popularity--I just found it out."

P: In a Chicago department store, Santa found that many moppets were fascinated by the ticking of his watch, decided to do even better. He buried an alarm clock in his stuffed paunch. All went well until the alarm went off, sent terrified children scampering across the floor.

P: In Asbury Park, N.J., a mechanical laughing Santa in the window of Steinbach's department store caught fire from a short circuit. While the smoke billowed through the window, his ghostly mechanical belly laugh could be heard ringing in the streets.

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