Santa Claus at the Maple Grove Mall from the day after Thanksgiving till Christmas Eve. Why should Santa get all the glory? Surely Mrs. Claus did more than stay home and bake cookies for the elves. She liked the idea of sitting on a throne alongside Santa, dressed in a similar white-fur-trimmed red suit, and listening to the little kids talk about their Christmas wishes. Pam’s own son and daughter were grown and gone. Now in her mid-forties, divorced for nearly a year and recently “excessed” from her job due to budget cuts, she felt at a crossroads. She'd been spared a midlife crisis, having hit forty and most recently forty-five without a whimper, only to have life hit her with the one-two punch of losing her marriage and then her job. Pam was an optimist, the eternal glass-half-full type, however, and instead of going into a tailspin, she welcomed the new opportunities that she was sure were around the next corner. She didn’t know what her next regular job would be but meanwhile welcomed this temporary gig as Mrs.
