Three-year-old Tessa Hudson talks to a Tennessee orange Santa Wednesday at Hamilton Place Mall.Somewhere, possibly curled up in a fetal position, former Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley is probably screaming, “There really is a Big Orange Santa? Really? Now you tell you me.
“If only I’d known that last year I could have asked for a 9-3 season, nothing greedy, just something to calm the Big Orange Nation. Instead, I must have gotten Crimson Santa. No wonder all those Bama fans call Saban ‘Saint Nick.'”
There were no Alabama football fans to be found on the first floor of Hamilton Place Mall on Wednesday night. At least none anywhere near the general vicinity of Big Orange Santa, who was making his second and final stop of the holiday season before returning to the North Pole.
“This is a great turnout,” said Catharine Wells, the mall’s group marketing director, as she surveyed a respectable line of orange-clad families. “We’ve done this for several years now and it’s always been a big hit.”
Amazingly, the first child up was reportedly 8-year-old Peyton — you can’t make this stuff up! — Bowers. Her father supposedly chose the name for obvious reasons, but her mother liked it because of a television character.