by Mary Serico
Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were filled with good times with family and friends. I am sure you probably had a few new year’s resolutions and may have broken one or two already. Well, Santa had a diet and exercise resolution. The only difference was that his resolution started in July so he was in tip-top shape for Christmas Eve.
Santa’s diet started on a warm July day when I was searching for a funny song for my Dance A Lot Ballroom Studio Annual Christmas Gala Showcase. I am sure the golfers passing our house got a chuckle hearing Christmas songs in the middle of July. When I heard Santa’s on a Diet, I knew I found the perfect song and an idea for the showcase. I now had to convince Georgi to dance in a fat suit, elastic red pants, wig, beard, boots, and hat. Georgi surprised me when he agreed — I now had my dancing Santa!
First things first, we got Adriana to work with Georgi and me on the choreography to match our vision to the song and start practicing. Adriana’s choreography fit the song, and we had the beginnings of a funny, entertaining showcase with lots of props and costume pieces. We had a few sessions with her to clean up what wasn’t working and to make sure all the props and costumes worked. In the end, we had 22 props — I feat I do not want to ever repeat.
The biggest challenge was the Santa jacket. My vision was to make a Santa fat jacket that would be unzipped at the end of the song. This was a lofty goal for someone who doesn’t own a sewing machine and can’t cut a straight line with scissors, but I had a lot of time to figure it out. Even though it was July, I had to start the Santa suit so we would be ready for the Holiday Gala. Several Santa suits were ordered on Amazon, and we found one that had all the components, fit Georgi, and most importantly, had a zipper. After the first Santa suit return to Kohls, they remembered me as the Santa suit lady the next 4 times. ????
I now had to figure out how to translate my vision into a real Santa fat suit that was not too heavy for dancing and can be unstuffed for storage because I plan on using it again. It was a real trial and error process with lots of modifications and dress rehearsals in the heat of the summer and fall. I found that snaps, Velcro, and seam mend were my version of sewing duct tape so nothing could show on the outside of the suit. We started with two pillowcases stuffed with bubble wrap on the front left and right. We had quite a few changes until we ended up with a full suit with stuffing between the suit and the lining.
During one of our dress rehearsals, we noticed that the top of the suit looked too skinny. Good thing I kept the leftover fabric, so I was able to add some stuffing to the chest area. I also had to attach the belt so it wouldn’t fall off when Georgi took off the jacket. I thought I was done with the modifications, and we were all set, but no. The zipper took too long, and the trim was getting caught in the zipper — so we changed to snaps. Thank goodness I had extra snaps and seam mend. The suit was finally done!
In all, we had at least 8 dress rehearsals with suit modifications each time. You can imagine the strange looks I got when I was carrying the Santa suit in and out of the studio. Each alteration had me talking to myself and testing my patience while I was waiting for the seam mend to dry. The dress rehearsals paid off because all the props worked perfectly.
I missed my last lesson before the Gala and was not feeling well, but everyone enjoyed the showcase and we had a great time performing. The kids were surprised to see Santa dancing, and everyone loved the ending. I am still not sure how Georgi was able to see anything with the curly wig. I want to thank Anthony Kanev for taking the Gala pictures and Pattyann for taking the video. Now to figure out how to use the suit for the 2023 Gala — I am thinking maybe Stretchy Pants?
Watch the entire dance below:
Dance A Lot Ballroom Studio on Instagram: “Did you know that Santa was on a diet? Watch Mary Serico…
Dance A Lot Ballroom Studio shared a post on Instagram: “Did you know that Santa was on a diet? Watch Mary Serico and…www.instagram.com
About Mary: Mary has been dancing since 2006. She loves dancing Cha Cha, Rumba, and Swing, but her favorite thing is to do showcases. With her husband Joe, they spend their time enjoying the retired life at the Jersey shore, golfing, traveling, and attending rock concerts.
By Dance A Lot Ballroom Studio on .
