{"id":360711,"date":"2025-12-22T01:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T01:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/360711\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T01:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T01:02:10","slug":"completely-unacceptable-alberta-mall-santa-replaced-after-boy-slapped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/360711\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Completely unacceptable\u2019: Alberta mall Santa replaced after boy slapped"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tDescrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tIncrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>In the seminal Christmas movie, Miracle on 34th Street, when a young Susan Walker pulls on Santa\u2019s beard, the magic of Christmas is revealed. But an Alberta <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/mall-santa\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">mall Santa<\/a> has discovered reality can be much different.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765485674_689_70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>A mall Santa in Sherwood Park, Alta., has been relieved of his duties after he slapped a little boy\u2019s hand when the child pulled his beard.<\/p>\n<p>The mall, located in a hamlet east of Edmonton, says it sincerely apologizes to the boy and his family.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement posted to its Facebook page, the mall called the incident \u201ccompletely unacceptable\u201d and confirmed the Santa involved had been removed from the program and would not be returning.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tSherwood Park Mall issued a public apology on Facebook, calling the incident unacceptable and confirming the Santa involved was removed and will not return.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tSherwood Park Mall \/ Facebook\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\tTrending Now\n\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11584809\/maria-shriver-donald-trump-kennedy-center-renaming\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766365330_376_Untitled-design-59.png\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Beyond comprehension\u2019: Maria Shriver derides Trump Kennedy Center renaming\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11585139\/donald-trump-patriot-games-hunger-games\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766365330_505_Trump-white-house-address.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tDemocrats mock Trump\u2019s Patriot Games, compare it to \u2018The Hunger Games\u2019\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cEnsuring that each child has a magical Christmas experience is of the utmost importance to us,\u201d the mall said in the post.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Cherry Hill Programs, which vets, trains and provides Santas to hundreds of malls and venues across Canada, including Sherwood Park Mall, said in an email to The Canadian Press that it is aware of the situation and that \u201cthe Santa was replaced so families can continue to experience the magic of Christmas during the remaining days of the holiday season.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 With files from the Canadian Press<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Canada<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2025 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Descrease article font size Increase article font size In the seminal Christmas movie, Miracle on 34th Street, when&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[901,45,49,48,119712,155253,155254],"class_list":["post-360711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-alberta","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-holiday-season","tag-mall-santa","tag-sherwood-park-mall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}