You can buy him at Lowes…this is the picture I had in my head…just in the form of an inflatable.

I totally just met Santa Claus.

Not the real one…clearly, but a very nice impersonator, and I’ve got to say that it absolutely positively made my night.  This guy had the beard, he had the build, and he drove up on a motorcycle wearing a leather jacket.  Seriously, it was a pretty badass looking motorcycle (or at least it was to the untrained eye on a dark night).  It was not a Santa kind of motorcycle, although I’m relatively certain that a “Santa kind of motorcycle” is a sleigh…

You know how every year your favorite shows put out a Christmas special?  Well, Castle this week featured, you guessed it, a Santa impersonator(or whatever it is that you call those). In the episode (which I ended up watching four separate times–not on purpose, I swear) that the Santa falls from the sky dead, and at first they think they have an ID on the body but as it turns out they don’t because his drivers license is written out to no other than…dun dun duuuuhhhhnnnn…Santa Clause!

The Santa I met today had one of those on a string around his neck, which probably made me even more excited. (As a sidenote, I found a company that actually sells those… Santa’s License )

Also he gave me his business card which reads “Santa Steve” and the phone number on it is the number for his sleigh.  No joke.  Pretty cool stuff.

I was a little sad that we A) didn’t have his book and B) he actually picked up the phone when I called to tell him that we didn’t have his book.  He told me that he year round leaves the voice mail on his phone to his Santa one because kids get a kick out of it.  Apparently the voice mail goes on about Santa not being able to answer the phone because he’s off feeding the reindeer or something to that effect.  He did answer the phone “Santa Steve”, which, as you may have guessed at this point, made me positively giddy.

Of course I got excited and told everyone who would momentarily care, and, let me tell you, Kristen at the other store was either really jealous or totally humoring me.  Enthusiasm!  I do so appreciate enthusiasm.  Honestly, it’s probably why I got so excited about the Santa in the first place.  I really appreciate people who are honestly enthusiastic and joyful about what they do.  I mean, this guy owns it.  So much so that he keeps a silly voice mail up to make kids happy.  That rocks.

I guess enthusiasm and excitement, joy and all of that are what makes December special.  They’re what makes the Christmas season special.  Not to be overly cheesy on my first blog post, but I think I’ve been putting off inaugurating this thing because I’ve been waiting for that something special, something that made me enthusiastic, to write about for post #1.

So, Santa Steve, the Scribbler salutes you.

I hope, whomever is out there reading this (if anyone is out there reading this), that you find something this December that makes you so enthusiastic that you have to find someone to tell about it immediately no matter how stupid, frivolous, or trivial it may be.