People Have Every Right To Be Mad That The Bloomingdale's Santa Is Wearing A Green Suit Instead Of A Red One
NY Post - As part of a “holiday partnership” with the cinematic event “Wicked,” Santaland at the Bloomingdale’s 59th Street flagship has been “Oz-ified” to be more Emerald City than North Pole. There are pink Christmas trees, wand lollipops instead of candy canes, “Wicked”-themed bracelets and jolly old St. Nick wears a green — not red — suit with elaborate gold details.
For many, Santa’s extreme makeover isn’t making the “nice list.”
“Just a heads up if your child is expecting Santa in his traditional red and white suit, Bloomingdale’s is only offering green Santa. We left a bit disappointed without a photo,” wrote a dejected mom on a local Facebook group last week. “I just wanted to share in case other people were thinking about taking their kids to see Santa and want a traditional photo.”
Kids are also struggling with the change.
On Saturday at “Wicked” Santaland, an emerald-clad elf admitted that babies take one look at Santa and start crying.
“I think it’s because he’s green,” the holiday helper told The Post .
Six-year-old Jada Robinson was “very, very, very surprised” about green Santa.
Red is “more Christmas-y,” the East Village first grader said.
Listen, I saw Wicked. It was good. Really good. The visuals are insane, the songs are really good and it's a great variation of a super popular story we all know and love, The Wizard Of Oz. It's sweeping the nation by storm. My entire Tik Tok feed is the movie clips, people at the movie, or people recreating the movie. Non stop. So I get that pop culture topics move the needle and that marketing partnerships like this make sense. I totally get that. But as Feits once famously wrote, "there has to be a line."
And that line for me is Santa's red suit. Some things in this world are sacred, Football on Sundays, Barbecue's on The 4th Of July, and Santa's red suit. I don't care about marketing partnerships and how it fits the Wicked theme etc, Santa wear red.Period. End of story. If you doubt me look no further than these kids flipping out and crying when they go see Santa. They are expected to see red, they color him red at school, they see him in red at the other malls, and they dream of him dropping off gifts in his red suit, no ifs ands or buts. When you throw a monkey wrench like this in the plan and put him in green because of a musical it leads to chaos.
Finally, the people who we should feel for here are the parents. Can you imagine the questions they have to deal with in a situation like this? "Why is Santa in Green?" "Did he lose his suit?" "What's wrong with Santa?" and on and on and on. Just make it simple Bloomingdale's and put the guy in red like he's supposed to be. Unreal.