I Saw Nikki Torture Santa Claus

Disclaimer: I do not own Legally Blonde the Musical. Dratage.

A/N: Merry Christmas to those of you celebrating it today! So I was walking in the mall (doing last minute x-mas shopping...fun, right?) and I saw the big scene they had set up for Santa...and the idea juices started flowing! Hopefully this can pass as my Christmas gift to you! Read...and most certainly review to let me know what you think! That would make a super-duper gift from you to me!

-ILoVeWicked

PS- I hope everyone's holiday, no matter what it is they are celebrating, is a great one!

Sometimes, the fact that I’m a father slips away from me. No matter how much I love my daughter, I still have that occasional daydream that I am some rich bachelor on a yacht, surrounded by models and butlers…the American male’s dream.

It was when my head came in contact with one of my daughter’s hard plastic toys that she had hurled at me while I was driving that I remembered that I was in fact the father of a two-year-old girl. Luckily, that moment we had come to a stoplight, so I could whirl around and face little Nikki Huntington, pink nosed form the cold air biting at her, with a glare.

“Really? We haven’t gotten past the toy hurling thing?” I asked Nikki, who simply crossed her arms over her chest, which was difficult for her to do due to the constricting, puffy winter jacket she was wearing, and pouted. She was in a mischevious mood today. Whether it was the fact that it was Christmas Eve or lack of nap, I couldn’t tell.

“I just wanted to say hi,” she complained. I could hear my wife snort beside me in the passenger’s seat. I looked at her with shock that she would find our girl’s antics of saying ‘hi’ funny. She wasn’t the one with the throbbing head.

“She’s so like me, it’s not even funny. I used to throw stuff at my parents all the time,” Brooke clarified.

She twisted in her seat to smile at our baby, whose attention had been turned to trying to take off the coat. The velvety red bow that matched with the puffy dress we had spent a half hour trying to get into Nikki’s crazy blonde hair was now in Nikki’s lap.

“Hey, Cutie, are you excited to go see Santa today?” Brooke asked. If possible, my daughter’s bright blue eyes lit up even more.

Yes, it was that time. Every child who celebrates Christmas is forced to do it, and today it was Nikki’s turn: Getting pictures with Santa. After my past experiences with the big man (my parents made me take pictures with Santa until I was out of high school…and I had a phobia of Mr. Claus), I tried convincing Brooke that Nikki didn’t really need to do this, she insisted that it would make a cute Christmas card.

Tell me, where’s the cuteness of a middle-aged man with no life dressing up as Santa and scaring innocent children? I sure couldn’t see it.

“Santa!” she screamed, breaking my eardrum in the process. Brooke laughed and reached out to place a hand on Nikki’s bouncing curls, which had taken at least two hours to create. I found it amazing how long it took to get Nikki in that dress and to get her hair looking better than the mop she usually had. She was already such a beautiful little girl, she just hated looking nice, just like me, even though I had to look nice for a living. Maybe Nikki wasn’t entirely like Brooke after all.

It was interesting to see just how many procrastinating parents were waiting in line with their bratty kids. Nikki’s bad mood was equivalent to some of these kids’ good moods. I was grateful to have such a sweetheart for a daughter, and I smiled when I glanced over at her, arms wrapped tightly around her mother’s neck as she hugged Brooke.

About an hour and fifty screaming rugrats later, it was Nikki’s turn to sit on Santa’s lap. Naturally, the tough girl façade she had shown me earlier disappeared when she actually saw Santa. Gripping onto my wife’s leg, Brooke and I looked like a couple of idiots as we had to drag our daughter up to the guy. And all of those accusing looks we were getting from older-looking couples that were wrangling four kids were making me really feel like an idiot.

So we were in our twenties and only married for a few months and had our daughter a little earlier than expected. Sure, we were shaky at our jobs as Mommy and Daddy, but hey, at least we weren’t old and unhappy. I sent the judging couples a glare that gave off that message and turned back to Brooke, who had magically gotten Nikki to cooperate and sit on Santa’s knee.

Brooke and I took a step back, me praying that this guy wouldn’t ruin my daughter’s Christmas by scaring the crap out of her.

“Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas, young lady! What do you want Santa to bring you this year?” The man asked the same question he had been asking hundreds of other kids in a deep, husky voice. Nikki didn’t seem to be paying attention, her eyes kept wandering around Santa’s face and body, her own face twisted in confusion.

Finally, Nikki gasped. Both Brooke and I didn’t know what she meant by that. Nikki pointed accusingly at Santa, her blue eyes wide.

“You’re not Santa!” she cried out. Through his thick, fake glasses, I could see the guy under the Santa suit was beginning to freak out.

He swallowed hard, composed himself and replied, “Why, ho, ho, ho, little girl, what do you mean? Of course I’m Santa!” Nikki shook her head and her velvety bow fell from her hair again.

Instead of crying out again, Nikki did the unexpected of just about everyone. She grabbed Santa’s beard and yanked hard. In one pull, the beard flew right off. Brooke and I were at loss for words as some children began screaming and crying out, “You’re not Santa!” Their parents and the ‘elves’ tried to calm everyone down as Santa took back his beard, which Nikki had been proudly swinging around.

Needless to say, my daughter singlehandedly ruined about one hundred kids’ beliefs in Santa Claus, and my wife and I were officially hated by about one hundred kids’ parents because of it.

Once we could regain the ability to breathe, I jumped forward into the middle of the scene and lifted my protester-daughter from Santa’s grasp, mouthing, “Sorry.” Santa rolled his eyes and shrugged.

“Eh, my shift is over anyway. That kid of yours has got a brain. What is she, like, five?” I shook my head as Nikki began pounding at my gut to put her down…probably so she could rip out the fake Santa belly.

“She’s two,” I told him. He looked as surprised as I was that he thought a tiny little girl could pass to be five.

“Wow, discovered by a two-year-old,” he said with a laugh. I was glad to see Santa was taking it like a man, despite the fact that some of the brats that were close in the front of the line were throwing their stuffed animals at him. “Merry Christmas.”

“You too,” I said, and when I whirled around to grab my wife and make a B-Line for Macy’s to get out of the mall, I instead came face to face with a giant, muscular security guard.

“Well, it wasn’t so bad,” Brooke tried to reason with me. I felt myself grow hot and red with embarrassment as I gripped tightly onto the wheel.

“Not so bad? Not so bad! Brooke, we had to sign a restraining order and we’re not allowed in that mall!”

“Only during the holiday season,” Brooke reminded me. Cautiously, she placed a hand on my shoulder. “Warner, she’s a two-year-old who just so happened to figure out that Santa was fake. She couldn’t possibly have known what she was doing was wrong. Stop getting pissed over it, because you’re making Nikki feel bad.”

That’s when I heard her sniffle behind me. I hadn’t even realized that all of this was hurting Nikki’s fragile feelings. She looked up at me, and I saw a tiny, crystal-like little tear caught in the crease between her cheek and under her eye. That tear just sat there, haunting me, and all of the sudden I remembered the old-couple’s stares. I may have been a father, but I felt like a crummy one at that moment. Any dad who makes his daughter cry deserved to be hit where it hurt.

“Hey, Nik, sweetie, don’t cry. Daddy didn’t mean all of that. He’s just mad at himself is all.” Nikki wiped the tear away from her eye, her lower lip quivering.

“Daddy, is the real Santa not gonna bring me anything for Christmas because I was a bad girl?” she asked quietly. I grinned, relieved that she still believed that Santa was out there, and shook my head.

“Not at all, Cutie. What you did today won’t Jeopardize anything. Santa will probably thank you for exposing that fake guy.” Nikki beamed.

“I love you, Daddy,” she said happily. Hearing those words from my little girl meant the world to me. No Christmas gift could ever compare to having your daughter tell you that she loved you. I beamed back at her, the light of my life, Nikki Huntington, and I could even sense that the other light of my life, Brooke, was beaming to herself beside me.

“I love you too, Nikki,” I told her before turning back around. I brought my attention to my wife, who was grinning along with me.

“Good job, Warner,” she whispered. “That kid is such a handful, and you just made a very nice save there.”

I nodded and laughed, taking her hand. “Yeah, she is a handful. But we’ll get through the whole parenthood thing together.”

“On step at a time,” Brooke added as she leaned in to kiss me when we approached a stop light. As if on cue, Nikki chucked yet another one of her toys in our direction, hitting both Brooke and I square in our faces.

Yeah, I was a father;the father of a wild, adorable, sweet, perfect little two-year-old girl to be exact.

And I loved it.