This Santa Shortcut Sure Didn’t Pay Off

On this day after Christmas, many are the children for whom the excitement is over. The mystery behind the gifts is gone. The brightly colored packages are opened. They’ve had ample time to break the battery-operated Pikachu and to play the new $50 Nintendo 64 game so many times, they’ve decided it’s boring and put it up on the shelf to collect dust.

Time for a little Christmas denouement. The only thing left to look forward to are the sales and the lines at the store return desks.

But then there are the unknown number of kids whose gifts did not arrive from Toys R Us in time for Christmas. Unlike all of us who actually had something to open Christmas morning, those kids still have something to look forward to. OK, so Saturday wasn’t a thrill for them. But just think how great Wednesday, or, say, Thursday might be.

Santa Claus would never act like this. If he did, he’d have been banned years ago and forced to put up his reindeer for adoption.

Nope, he and the Missus ran a good, clean business out of the North Pole. If they told a kid they’d get a present by Christmas Day, by golly, that present would be there. And that’s with a worldwide load that had to be delivered all on the same night.

Now, in those years when presents were sparse or nonexistent under the tree, Santa at least had the courtesy of dispatching Mom or Dad to tell their youngsters well in advance that it would be a lean Christmas. If done just right, the kids would understand.

But Santa would never ever mislead people.

He would never do what Toys R Us pulled last week, just a few days before Christmas.

The giant toy chain announced that an unknown number of tykes around the country could be left wailing on Christmas morning because their presents wouldn’t arrive on time.

Broken Promises

Actually, the company didn’t phrase it quite like that, but that would be the net effect of its announcement that it couldn’t guarantee Christmas delivery of all its online orders--even those made several weeks ago.

It seems the company miscalculated its ability to handle the orders and, for whatever reason, didn’t get around to telling people until last week when it sent out an e-mail to an unspecified number of customers.

Santa never sent out an e-mail. He probably doesn’t even have a fax machine.

The company said some of the late deliveries might have been ordered as early as November, well before its previously announced guaranteed-by-Christmas cutoff date of Dec. 9.

Now, all the company can say is sorry. It didn’t mean to mislead; it just hadn’t foreseen how popular online shopping would be.

Toys R Us executives said they’ll give hundred-dollar gift certificates if the promised gifts don’t arrive on time.

Imagine the parents explaining that one to the kids. Santa didn’t make it here, but he does pay late fees.

The Cost of Convenience

The toy company will take a public relations bath on this, as it should, but the gaffe raises another looming millennial Christmas issue.

Wasn’t the disappointment perhaps also due to adults who couldn’t brave a few crowded stores to put their own hands on a gift? Don’t you give up a bit when you order a kid’s present online--aside from, in this case, actually getting the gift in time? You see a picture of something, you punch in a code, you give some machine your credit-card number and, voila, Merry Christmas?

There’s something rewarding about post-Christmas letdown when it’s caused by frazzled but loving people who expend the sweat to hit the stores, sneak the presents home, wrap them up the night before and then set out Santa’s milk and cookies. And collapse into bed.

It’s all a royal pain.

Until this morning, when we remember how much happiness was caused yesterday by our willingness to put in the extra effort.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com.