Santa sings his songs

Holiday shoppers looking for entertainment while they search for the perfect present may want to head to the Glendale Galleria this season where they can be serenaded by Santa Claus.

Along with hearing what children want for Christmas and posing for photos with them, singing Santa Mark Greer Thompson also dishes out holiday ballads from the Santa set in the court in front of JCPenney.

“Not only do retailers have fantastic specials and deals, we also have Southern California’s only singing Santa Claus,” said Galleria Marketing Director Janet LaFevre. “Throughout the course of every day he will burst out singing holiday songs.”

Sitting in front of a house made of large artificial cookies, Santa welcomed dozens of kids to tell him their yuletide desires Monday. Though the crowd was small, Thompson said his singing comes in handy when the lines get long and people could use some entertainment.

“I enjoy singing and it entertains the crowd when you have a lot of people waiting for their photos to develop,” Thompson said. “It helps a lot with the flow of operations when I can fill the time with singing.”

He belted out a hearty version of “Holly Jolly Christmas” Monday afternoon, dancing around the winterland set and causing many onlookers to stop and watch. He finished to applause from visitors on both the first and second floors of the mall.

“It’s nice,” said Steve Seenarine of New York who stopped by to bring his son to see Santa Claus. “I haven’t really seen anything like this — I never really paid attention to Santas till now.”

In addition to a caroling Kris Kringle, this year’s Santa set also features laptop computers kids can use to surf America Online’s new kids Web site KOL.com.

Santa will also be answering text messages from kids every Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. through Dec. 19 and conducting online chats every Thursday at 10:30 a.m. through Dec. 21.

More information on these events is available at the Santa set.

“Santa is very high-tech this year,” LaFevre said.

Patrons can also pick up a CD of Santa’s singing at his booth.

“I sing primarily the crooning Christmas classics,” Thompson said. “Mostly Andy Williams and Bing Crosby-type songs.”

This is Santa’s fourth year at the Galleria and he said this year’s most requested gift has been a Sony PlayStation 3.

“They’ve also asked for toy trucks, trailers and cars,” he said.

Lena Sayegh, of Pasadena, stopped by Santa’s station Monday to let her child have a word with St. Nick in between her shopping.

“It looks good,” she said of the high-tech setup. “This Santa looks good compared to other ones.”