Being Santa has to be a tough job: you work the night shift, lift heavy loads, and rely on a bioluminescent caribou to fly through dense clouds. (God forbid the elves whip up a flashlight once in a while instead of manufacturing iPad retinas for one-percenter six-year-olds, #amirite?) He can't even manage to look cool on a hoverboard. So you have to have some sympathy for these real-life bad Santas. There's only so many times a fat man can squeeze down a chimney before he snaps, you know?
1. The Santa who undercut Macy's.
Writes The New York Post:
A bad Santa was bagging cash right and left from kiddies and their parents while panhandling in a prime spot outside Macy’s in Herald Square on Sunday — hitting them up for $5 a pop to take a single photo with him.
The fake fat man held a Christmas choir bell in one hand — and a red knapsack full of cash and clothes in the other — as he asked for “tips’’ and “donations.’’
Santa 101: Never mess with the Macy's Santa. That guy is the real deal.
2. The Santa who resisted going full postal on his local mail carriers, but still robbed them.
Last year, a Santa robbed a post office in Australia and even put the money he took in a red sack. He made his getaway in a cream Jeep, even though this is a guy who literally has a flying reindeer named "Dasher."
3. The Santa who picked a fight with a 3-year-old.
This Santa was fired from his cushy mall gig in Toronto after telling a 3-year-old that his coat made him look like Paul Bunyan and that his favorite hockey team "sucked." That's the Canadian version of a Yo Mama joke. Surprisingly, the Santa didn't parlay this kind of behavior into a campaign for the Toronto mayor's office.
4. The Santa who gave kids deemed unworthy the silent treatment.
Wrote The Daily Dot in 2012:
“[H]e broke all 3 of my girls hearts by brushing them off and not even responding to them when they talked to him! extremely disappointed and bummed,” wrote Kari Henderson.
“I took Bella and her friend,” wrote Trish Moulton. “Santa told her friend she didn't really want what she asked for. The girls are 8 and said Santa was being weird.”
“Very disappointed in Santa this year,” wrote Ka Judice. “He made my 11 year old son cry - basically told him he was being greedy."
In Santa's defense, the kids probably deserved it.
5. The Santa who told British kids about the Sandy Hook shootings.
From The Oxford Mail:
The 33-year-old mum-of-three and her husband Steven took their children – Ryan, 10, Amy, seven, and Katie, six – to visit Santa on Saturday.
She said her children, who all attend Rush Common School in Abingdon, told Santa they had been good this year.
But she said he replied: “Well there are bad people in the world and bad things happen, like what happened to those children in America.”
The Santa then explained what happened to those kids and topped it off by revealing that he wasn't the real St. Nick. Those kids did a lot of growing up that day.
6. The Santa who groped an elf.
Says The Smoking Gun:
According to a Hanover Police Department report, the elf told officers that “she walked by Santa who was in his chair at which point he reached up and pinched her buttocks.” Jones and the teenager work for a company that describes itself as “providing Santa Photographic services to the mall during the holiday season.
Santa was 62. She was 18. Even for immortal beings, that's pretty gross.
7. The Santa who told a 9-year-old girl that he wasn't real.
Wrote The Chronicle:
She explained: “Sophie went to the grotto with her grandma and when she got to the front of the queue the man dressed as Santa Claus turned round and said, ‘you are old enough now to know that Santa doesn’t exist and that it is people who buy your gifts’
Thankfully, Sophie's mother did the right thing by continuing to lie to her daughter.
8. The Santa who shot up a gas station.
It happened in Detroit, says the local ABC affiliate:
The attendant says it was a crazy scene. He says the argument started outside the store and then they started shoving each other. Then, he says Santa pulled out a gun and started shooting.
Two people were injured in the shooting, which apparently started due to a fight over a woman who probably was not Mrs. Claus.
9. The Santa who hijacked a helicopter.
Says Reuters:
The thief rented the aircraft late Friday from an air taxi service at the Campo Marte airport in Sao Paulo for a Black Friday "surprise," the Sao Paulo state security secretariat said on Saturday.
During the flight, the Santa forced the pilot to fly to a small farm outside of Sao Paulo city, where they were met by a third person, the secretariat said.
The pilot was tied up and the two perpetrators flew away.
This one's on me. I asked Santa for a Brazilian helicopter this year.