Santa's Labyrinth

For my sister, on her birthday. She's been pestering me to finish this for weeks, and since I'm more or less trapped inside all day due to the snow falling outside my window, I decided to finally write this. Apologies to David Sedaris--there are several echoes of "The Santaland Diaries" in this piece. Consider this the version from the visitor's point of view.


A complete set of pictures from this day can be found here. I highly recommend watching the Slide Show of the pictures--it tells just as good of a story.


Every year my sister brings her family up for Thanksgiving, and every year we make the trek into Chicago to have lunch and to see the window displays at Macy’s Department Store.

And, of course, to see Santa.

This is the part that I am usually excused from attending. While they wait in the hour-plus line to visit Santa, I walk east to Millennium Park to take pictures and get a little air.

This year, however, I stayed with them, mostly because I couldn’t leave my sister with three young children in that place on her own. And the line seemed short, so I figured this wouldn’t be as bad as I remembered.

When the woman came rushing out of the entrance to Santa’s Cottage asking for a doctor is when I knew I had made a mistake.

It all looks simple enough, from the outside. The line snaking through the toy section, kids excited and patient. But then you cross through the gateway, and you leave behind the comfort of high ceilings and bright lights, and you enter something dark and dangerous.

Synthesized carols compete with a constant beeping and clonking as the sounds ricochet through the narrow Tudor-like hallways. Someone bangs on a xylophone off in the distance. Flashing lights illuminate strange images of warped pine trees and bicycles suspended from the ceiling. At one point a stuffed cat with a look of pure terror appears in a small window, pleading to be released from its eternal prison.

The line moves slower than usual. The failing economy has probably forced Macy’s to cut back on the number of Santas they keep tucked away inside the labyrinth. My nephew repeatedly brushes his hand against a woman’s ass, but when she turns around, she sees only me standing behind her.

Pinwheels and plastic gears spin as the children reach their breaking point, and the tenuous social order in our line starts to break down.





It all seems created by people who don’t really understand Christmas, and the high decorated walls disguise the fact that we are moving in a nightmare, creeping forward to the next turn, only to discover yet another passageway of blinking lights and guitar-playing teddy bears.

At one point the paramedics wheel out an elderly man wrapped in a blanket, undoubtedly faking a stroke in order to escape the task of shepherding his grandchildren through this never-ending maze of mental torture.

Santa’s visage peers from the face of a clock, the long hand spinning madly, reminding all of us that time has no meaning here, that we are completely in his power.

Then, we finally reach the end, the place where the line stops and you are escorted to a small waiting room while a polite woman asks for your picture order. Everyone breathes easily again. The kids nervously peer around the corner, realizing that He’s in the next room.

And you turn that corner, and there he is. Sitting in a high-backed chair, next to a fireplace and a Christmas tree. Gentle, soft-spoken, welcoming. And even though I know otherwise, and I know there are a few other rooms just like this around the corner, I also know that He Is Santa, and I understand why we wander through the labyrinth every year.


The kids take their turns telling Santa what they want this year. I stand off to the side, as my cynicism falls away, and silently tell Santa what I want that year for Christmas. That most precious thing that I keep deep in my heart, that I long for so badly, that I want for him to be able to give it to me.

We spend some time looking at the windows outside the old Marshall Field and Company, disappointed in them once again. They haven’t been as good since Macy’s took over.

We walk to the park and eat lunch, and the girls stare longingly at the ice skaters, circling around and around, as the sun disappears behind the tall buildings. I imagine them pondering their brief moment before Santa, wondering what will be awaiting them on Christmas morning, wondering if he will be able to make their dreams come true.