Our first tour of 2003 was a difficult one. Not only was the travel long – we went from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to San Francisco then up to Alaska – but this was the trip where I fully lost the strength in my arm and realized something was wrong with my neck. If not for meeting Santa Claus, this might have been one of my worst trips ever.

In Alaska, January is the part of the year when it’s like night all day. Matt [Hardy] and I were driving around Fairbanks at three in the afternoon trying to find a gym and it’s pitch black outside.

We weren’t having any luck so we pulled over to a gas station. The attendant said he knew of a gym that was a little bit of a trip to get to. He gave us these directions, which put us on some desolate road with no hint of a gym anywhere. We were about to turn back when we noticed a sign that read “North Pole: 11 miles”. The two of us immediately decided we had to go there. It wasn’t the real North Pole, but at least we could say we were at the North Pole.

A little bit up the road we passed another sign for it. This one gave us the mile marker and also proclaimed it as “Home of the Santa Claus House”. We pulled over to take pictures next to the sign. How many times in your life are you going to be in front of a sign like this? We get back in the car and once we’re in the area of the “North Pole” we pull into McDonald’s to get some hot chocolate.

We asked the guy where Santa Claus lives, kind of jokingly, and he answered back with a straight face, “Oh, right around the corner and you’ll see it.” So we followed his directions, and sure enough, there was Santa Claus’s House.

It’s this great big tourist attraction; it was awesome. We go in and Santa knew who we were. Before we could say anything, he’s like, “Hey, you’re Matt Hardy and Edge!” He was a Mattitude follower and an Edgehead, which was pretty cool. Can you believe that? We’re all excited to go see this Santa Claus house and he knows who we are. Santa took some pictures and chatted with us; this guy actually changed his name to Kris Kringle – man, he was living the whole gimmick. Then he took us out back, where he had the reindeer.

Prancer was the only one left because he had gored some of the other guys a few days before, and they hadn’t had a chance to get any new ones yet. We went into the store to buy all sorts of Christmas decorations, took some more pictures, and hung out with Santa for a bit before getting on our way to make it to the show on time.

When Matt and I got to the building we started telling everyone about our trip to Santa Claus’s house and no one believed us. It was like we were eight years old again, telling kids in school about how we saw Santa Claus and no one would believe us. Later on, though, Santa showed up at the building. We got him front-row seats.

I wrestled John Cena that night, and he of course did a rap on Santa. We did a spot during the match where I rammed Cena into the wall right in front of where Santa was sitting, and we gave each other the high five and everything. The crowd was so into the Santa spots. It’s official: Santa Claus is so over with the fans in Alaska.

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Special thanks to Carolyn for typing this up for me!
 
 
 

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