I make a terrific Swedish gnome

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Despite his height, Doug plays a Swedish gnome remarkably well.

Maybe it's the magic of Christmas, but I am giving serious thought to abandoning my life as a crusading newspaper columnist in exchange for a thrilling life in the theatre.

I am pondering this career change because of the glowing reviews I received over the weekend when, due to a last-minute dramatic crisis, I was forced to step into a starring role in the Swedish community's annual Christmas pageant at the Scandinavian Cultural Centre.

We go to the pageant every year because it's organized by our friend Lena, who is married to my buddy Bob, and it features their two children, who, unlike my own kids, are not embarrassed to be seen in public with me.

It celebrates the Festival of Santa Lucia, which is sort of the Swedish festival of lights, and it always begins with a procession of extremely cute kids marching into a darkened room wearing white gowns with red sashes and holding candles. Except some of the kids are also wearing crowns of leaves festooned with candles, which conveys the dramatic concept that, as a nation, Sweden has not quite grasped the concept of fire prevention.

This year, one of the kids, who was about five years old, dropped her crown on the floor and burst into tears to convey to the audience that wearing a bunch of candles on your head is not easy when you are only five.

Which brings us to my unexpected starring role. By way of background, a major highlight of this pageant comes when my buddy Bob reads the story of The Tomten, a legendary Swedish Christmas gnome the size of a canned ham that creeps around in the snow wearing a red cap and a flowing white beard.

Traditionally, Bob reads this story while the cute candle-toting kids gather 'round him and pictures from the beloved book are displayed on a big-screen TV. But this year, the person who owns the DVD of the storybook apparently returned to Sweden, leaving a major gap in the production.

So, the night before the pageant, Bob came up with the following genius emergency plan: He would read the story in front of a fake fireplace, and I would put on a Santa cap and a cheesy white beard from a local dollar store and pretend to be the pint-sized Swedish gnome.

In the storybook, the Tomten creeps around a snow-covered farm, leaving a trail of tiny footprints and (why not?) visiting all the barnyard animals. Here's a sample of the dramatic plot, as read by Bob:

"The Tomten goes first to the cowshed. The cows are dreaming that summer is here, and they are grazing in the fields. The Tomten talks to them in Tomtem language, a silent little language the cows can understand."

Swedish people LOVE this story, so I was determined to be the best Tomten possible, despite the fact that, at roughly 285 pounds, it's difficult for me to realistically creep around "on small silent feet." Whenever the Tomten had to visit a particular animal, my job was to pop out from behind the Christmas tree, dart over to a pile of stuffed animals, then creep around the room carrying the appropriate animal and making the appropriately realistic barnyard noise.

This probably sounds like a piece of cake to you, but the truth is almost all of my animal noises sound exactly alike, by which I mean they all sound like a cow that has had a sensitive part of its anatomy caught in a trash compactor. Tragically, we could not find a chicken, so we used a pink stuffed duck in its place.

"Tomten goes to the chicken house," Bob thundered, dramatically.

"QUACK! QUACK!" I grunted, sounding like an experimental duck-cow hybrid.

But the audience loved it, especially when Tomten had to visit the sheep, as portrayed by "Basil," a life-sized stuffed toy sheep my mother gave me and which easily weighs as much as a Buick Skylark.

So there I was, staggering around in the audience, hefting a gigantic stuffed sheep, which I poked in the faces of all the giggling children while shrieking: "OH NO. CALL THE POLICE. IT'S A GIANT KILLER SHEEP!"

There was not a dry pair of underpants in the crowd at that point. "You were a very LARGE elf," is what one happy Swedish person told me later. "You creep very well for a big guy," said another.

Then, in honour of my stunning performance, they agreed it would be a good idea for me to help everyone put away hundreds of dirty dishes and stack the tables and chairs in the corner.

It was more fun than a trip to IKEA, but next year, when it's time to clean up, I suspect Tomten will be hiding in the barn working on his chicken impersonation.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 16, 2011 A4