anna the elf

✬ a few years ago, when i happened to be back in my hometown at christmas time, i landed a really good christmas promotion job. for the whole month of december, i was paid to be 'anna the elf'; dress up in christmas 'elf' clothes and be a sort of game-show hostess, alongside 'whiskas', a local tv and radio celebrity.

we had a truck that had been revamped into a christmasy game-show set on wheels, and we drove it around town every morning, parking it in busy shopping spots. my job was to give away free raffle tickets and toys to all the christmas shoppers walking by. then three winners would get to climb up onto the game-show set and whiskas would host a jeopardy game show, while i stood around being a bimbo and handing out the grand prizes to the winners: BMX bikes, dvd players and stuff like that...

it was probably the best job i've ever had.... it was really good money, everybody loved me for giving them free things, and whiskas, who's a born comedian, was heaps of fun to work with. we were on tv commercials to advertise when we'd be in certain locations, so we ended up with groupies who would follow us around every day, mostly kids from the ghettos, hoping to win the big prizes.

as a charitable act, one day we decided to park in a small shopping strip in the actual ghettos to do the game show. that was probably the biggest crowd we ever had; all the poor unemployed pot-smokers came out for the freebies. it was a rough looking crowd, beer-bellied men with no shirts on, covered in tattoos, with long beards drinking from VB cans, women with rotting teeth, wearing moccasins and tracksuit pants, screaming and cursing at their kids who were running riot. whiskas told me to lock my purse in the truck and keep an eye on the prizes. i was pretty nervous even to get out of the truck, let alone approach this shady crowd with tickets.

during the game show, the rival supporting families were nearly throwing bottles at each other and i was scared to announce who the winner was! we handed the kid his new bike and as we drove away i looked back through the window to see a bigger kid snatch it off him and ride away with it...

i loved the job so much that i did it the following year as well. a few times i gave tickets to my old high-school teachers and i could see the disappointment in their faces at my career choice, but for me it was hilarious to be pulled up in the street or in bars with 'hey, you're that elf, aren't you?!'

;o)