WARMINGTON: Only glass Santa should see is one left out for him on Christmas Eve

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Nothing says Christmas like having Santa Claus and the kids separated by the same kind of glass wall seen in a prison visit.

Santa can fly around the world on a sleigh pulled by reindeer and deliver presents to children across the globe in just one day and get down chimneys with ease.

But, it seems, what he can’t do is find a way around the plexiglass preventing him from having kids sit on his lap or escape the pandemic’s mask rules, too. At least at the Santa’s Christmas Village in Mississauga’s Erin Mills Town Centre where his chair actually has a see-through plastic glass divider between him and the children, whose families are paying money to get their child’s picture with him.

It looks like a cross between something the pope would ride in or what you might find at a border point. It’s not a surprise that many of the confused and disappointed kids attempted to crawl around the glass and get to Santa anyway. Or that Santa did the same thing — sometimes putting his storybook around the edge so the kids can see it.

Surreal. Heartbreaking, too.

You know the COVID-19 pandemic has turned the world upside down when Santa Claus has both a beard and a mask! And forget about kids telling him what they want for Christmas on his knee or giving him a hug. But don’t blame the mall, which has a beautiful Christmas arrangement with a giant tree and decorations.

“The set-up is something the company (who they hired to put on the Santa events) does,” said a mall staffer. “There have been many bookings and no complaints.”

It’s certainly better than last year where mall Santas were cancelled.

Or is it?

The kids looked traumatized. It wasn’t adding up for them.

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Meanwhile, a quick survey of malls in Toronto, Peel and Halton show different pandemic Santa experience approaches. At Oakville Place, they have Santa in a chair and the kids socially distance while at Sherway Gardens in Etobicoke they have him behind a wooden desk while the masked-up kids are seated two metres away. In between visits one of Santa’s helpers brings out the disinfectant bottle and sprays the whole area down.

Sanitary Santa. Segregated Santa. Sad Santa.

While the whole thing looks sterile and more like a vaccination clinic than Santa’s workshop there’s no blame being levelled here today because under COVID-19 restrictions people are doing what they think is best to give the kids a regular Christmas while protecting them from the virus. But they should get Santa out of the penalty box — not wreck these kids’ childhood memories or those cherished family photos.

So much for the notion that a vaccinated society is one that is getting back to normal. Santa appearing in some sort of makeshift holding cell is not normal.