Bill's Bulletin Board
By Bill Rea

You have to admit that Santa Claus is one busy guy this time of year.

I spent most of Saturday bumping into him. I did the bumping; Santa was sitting most of the time.

Our first encounter was at a breakfast session at Nobleton United Church, and the old guy looked quite content to have local youngsters sit on his lap. He even obligingly posed with a couple of local pathfinders for me (give Santa credit, he's got good PR), as well as with some cute little dogs.

I casually mentioned that I would see him later, and received a slightly puzzled look in return. I fairness, I knew a couple of details about his schedule for the day, and I don't think he had been briefed on my plans, although I grant that might be a bit presumptuous. After all, he knows when I am sleeping (never), he knows when I'm awake (seldom), he knows when I am bad or good (y'know, let's not go there).

I had a few more workrelated calls to make, with my wife with me, and then a bit of down time presented itself. We checked out a couple of the big malls in the vicinity, and while we didn't see St. Nick, we did see his chair, unoccupied at that particular moment. Even Santa Claus has to have his lunch, as well as use the facilities from time to time.

Then we traveled back into King to watch children work on decorating their cookies and working on other crafts at the King Township Museum, under the watchful eyes of Guess Who?

Alas, we couldn't hang around there too long. There were a couple of Christmas shopping chores to attend to (with my work schedule, Beth has learned to grab anything even looking like free time for me to do chores as if it were made of gold), before heading for Schomberg for Main Street Christmas.

It was nice to actually see snow on the ground for that annual event. It just doesn't seem like Christmas if I can still see green grass on lawns.

Main Street Christmas, of course, kicks off with the annual Santa Claus Parade, so I saw the big guy in red again. He even waved at me from his float. Then he did some time sitting with the kids before taking his part in the Festival of Lights, and I was there to take pictures of it all.

Now to the best of my knowledge, Santa's work day ended at that point. Mine didn't, and I still had to travel to King City to watch the King Wild lose a thriller to the Richmond Hill Rams.

There have been times over the years when I have encountered Santa at hockey games. Once, the head and assistant coach of a house league team where I was working both donned Santa suits before going behind the bench. They were evidently hoping the gesture might spark their young charges. I can't remember if they won the match, but their picture did appear on the front page of the local paper, above the caption "Jolly good coaching."

But Santa was not at the Wild game Saturday night (at least I didn't see him). Good thing too. If I keep showing up at the same events at which he appears, he might accuse me of stalking.

I got through the whole day Sunday without seeing Santa in person, but I'm sure he and I are going to cross each other's paths in the days to some. At this time of the year, that's pretty hard to avoid. This is the busy time for both of us.

And as if Santa's not busy enough, I heard he and NORAD got together Friday for a quick trip from the North Pole, complete with sleigh and reindeer. Apparently (I heard this on the news), Santa and the crew did a flight from the pole as far south as some point in Colorado, then they turned around and flew home. It was sort of a dress rehearsal.

Since when does Santa Claus need to rehearse? He's been in his business a long time. One would think he'd have his routine down. True, he has to address changes in population patterns, but that's nothing new. For example, once the Slokker development goes up, he's going to have to budget a little more time in Nobleton. I'm sure he's up to the task.

But what really bothers me is the military's involvement in his annual journey, which has increased noticeably over the years.

What happened to the good old days, when I was a kid, when the radio started reporting some unidentified flying object coming from the north and heading to the North American mainland. These announcement, from NORAD, usually coming mid to late afternoon Christmas Eve, were always a source of interests to the little kid who was myself. There was one Christmas Eve when I was sick in bed, but I had my big brother to keep me informed of developments. I well remember his running upstairs to my room to tell me some UFO had been spotted over Baffin Island. He had the advantage in those days of having a kid brother who didn't know where Baffin Island was (I now think it's somewhere north of Schomberg, isn't it?)

Things got dressed up even more as the years progressed. We heard more of the attempts to identify this unidentified thing, and then we started hearing accounts of fighter pilots actually making visual contact, and event exchanging communications. Now Santa Claus even files a flight plan, and there's a Web site, where you can keep track of his progress. I'm not sure if I regard this as an improvement. I have too many fond memories of the UFO mysteries.