Special: interview with Mrs. Claus

Gentle Reader, first read 

http://aaronbenjaminzacharias.blogspot.com/2018/12/waking-dead-10.html

then read

http://aaronbenjaminzacharias.blogspot.com/2019/12/its-all-performance-art-59.html

Now read:

The first thing I really notice are her tattooed eyebrows, arched like two inverted commas hovering on top of her face.  It is almost as hard to determine her age, as to how many facelifts she´s had, and this one seems to be rapidly unravelling.  The old gal otherwise seems remarkably fit for a novegenarian, whippet thin, and still strong and erect.  Her thin straight hair is dyed a kind of henna red, and she has tied it severely behind her ears.  She is sipping something tall and cold, perhaps iced tea?  Just a moment ago she was spoon feeding Santa chocolate ice cream in the shade of a mango tea in the garden of the nursing home where he is still living in Costa Rica. Now she has left him alone to give me a few minutes of her time. Here is the edited condensed version of our interview.  Mrs. Claus in her own words.

"Well, first of  all, you can dispense with that Mrs. Claus nonsense.  This gal ain´t nobody´s Missus.  You can call me Stella.  The old man and I never tied the knot, and to be honest, I don't think he ever properly married not one of the ladies he has ever taken a fancy to.  But PR you know.  Optics, anyone?  This is an international icon, you know.  Even more popular than the baby you know who.  And how many parents would let their kids sit on the knee of a horny old goat who can't resist putting his hands up a ladies' skirt?  But that was years ago.  Now that he's old and barmy he's kind of turned into an innocent baby himself.  He's really turned into quite a sweetie, you know.  Especially since that girl in the blue robe came over last Christmas with her baby and put the kid on his lap.  Santa has never been the same.  And he still hasn't stopped smiling, even one year later.

"We first met, believe it or not, at a Christmas party.  No, I can't remember what year it was but it was years before you were born.  Well, I was a bit of a party gal, back in those days, and I was wearing this positively naughty little black cocktail dress, with a tight skirt and slit on the side that went up to the stratosphere.  Well, the band was playing (it was always live music back in the day), and I was sitting on Santa's knee, and Santa was saying ho-ho-ho, and the band struck up Santa Baby, so that's what I sang to him. "Santa baby, hurry down the chimney tonight."  Everyone would agree that I sang it way better than that black Eartha Kit chick, who was also at the party, but she stole the song from me and went and made it famous, but I don't care.  I got to be Santa's gal.  

"We never lived in the North Pole, by the way.  Just the elves were there with the reindeer.  But I was obliged to pay a courtesy visit every year, help boost their moral.  They needed it.  Not just that they worked hard, but the old goat paid them peanuts and practically worked them to death.  No wonder he lost them.  They unionized, then most of them went to work as extras on the set for Peter Jackson when he filmed Lord of the Rings in New Zealand.  The few that remained got really difficult.  They suddenly all declared themselves as gender nonconforming and if you didn't refer to them individually as they or them there would be hell to pay.  

So we lived most of the time in Miami.  incognito of course, and Santa lost a lot of weight, and joined a gym and actually got himself quite a bod'.  and of course, he was very generous paying for all my, er, upgrades.  But then we moved to Costa Rica where we bought out the timeshare we had here, and he just, you know, sort of let himself go.  I can't really add a lot more to this.  We never had kids, naturally, and since all the children of the world already love Santa why raise any of our own.  So for me it was either stay on the pill or get surgery.  I don't think I'll ever forgive him.  I always wanted a couple of kids of my own, and standing by while other people's brats get to sit on Santa's knee, just didn't cut it.  

"Otherwise, it hasn't been a bad life.  It's been better than a lot of the possible alternatives, and back in those days a gal just didn't have a lot of options for herself, so, yes, Santa has given me a decent, if not very glamorous life.  Hey look, it's the chick in the blue robe, she's back this year, and she has her baby with her.  But that must be her second kid, because the other one would be walking by now.  Or not?  Hey, wait a minute."

Mrs. Claus carries her iced tea to the mango shade where she pulls up a chair for the girl with the baby, and sits there chatting with her quietly while Santa looks on, smiling and staring happily into space.  The young mother invites her to hold her child, and Mrs. Clause, or Stella, breaks into a rapt smile, cradling the holy child in her arms, then singing what sounds like a lullaby.