Who knew Santa could be such a scamp?
This weekend, Lagniappe mounted the second Cenla Christmas Spectacular, a fun opportunity for local performers to get together, celebrate the holidays and perform with people they'd probably never get a chance to appreciate otherwise.
It was also a chance to appreciate a different take on Santa than I'd ever seen before.
The show opened with a forlorn, but upbeat Cajun disc jockey wishing for some Christmas snow. A person's gotta admire his pluck, wishing for snow while living in Louisiana (we'll disregard the fact that it snowed just last week.)
Well, as you might imagine, there was no snow during the show, except for the Red River Dance's snowflake dance from the Nutcracker. At the end of the show, not content with stage Nutcracker snow, the plucky, yet forlorn DJ laments Santa's silence in regards to his one Christmas wish. To everyone's surprise, Santa emerges from backstage, with a hearty laugh, and does some magic gestures. The theatre was tense with the anticipation of Santa's magical answer to the DJ's wish! Then... nothing happened. Santa laughed his hearty laugh, even stronger than before and walked offstage, leaving an even more dejected, and now incredibly surprised Cajun disc jockey.
Now wait. Hold up. Did I just see that? Did Santa really just come out and pretend to grant a poor man's Christmas wish, laugh in his face and then walk off? "Hello, young man! I *will* grant your wish! whoops! Just kidding, SUCKAS! HOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!"
While I began to reconcile this view of Santa with my previous perceptions, suddenly a trickle of snow began to fall on the DJs. Santa had granted his wish! It was just a little slow in coming. It turns out Santa's not really a jerk after all.
But I will forever remember that one minute when my notion of what Santa could be was forever changed.
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