With nine days to Christmas, I am yet to catch even a glimpse of Santa Claus. He’s been on no street corners, hasn’t been trying to get me to donate money to the Salvos, and has generally been keeping a low profile.

I have seen a few Santa houses in shopping centres and plazas where he reportedly stays when he’s in Hong Kong. Interestingly, there is no throne like constructions around for him to sit on. Until last night, I wasn’t sure where all the kiddies went to sit on Santa’s knee and tell him what they want for Christmas.

Last night I was reminded that Hong Kong really is the place for true capitalism. I attended a triathlon club Christmas party and was mentioning to a few people there that I was surprised to have not seen Santa yet. They told me that in HK you pay to see Santa.

I couldn’t believe it. Not only has Christmas become synonymous with consumerism and general over consumption, even Santa was cashing in. Not wanting to have a rant about this at a Christmas party, I posed the question “why would Santa charge an appearance fee?”

Over a few alcoholic beverages, we came to the conclusion that it’s due to the price of real estate in HK. Mr Shallot and I live in quite a modest size apartment and in the year that we’ve been here, rent has just about doubled (lucky for us we’re in a two year lease). Now, Santa makes an appearance annually in multiple shopping centres throughout HK where he has a large house that he stays in and takes his guests.

We observed Santa tends to be in the shopping centres in the more expensive districts so his rent would be fairly sizeable (the houses he has are not that much smaller than where we live and given he has a few and has to have them all self-contained, the cost easily mounts).

So there you have it. Santa keeps a low profile in Hong Kong because he can’t afford to not charge appearance fees due to the large amount of rent that he pays in each shopping centre where he temporarily resides.

I hope he owns his home in the North Pole and has some investment properties elsewhere all geared to the hilt – between giving gifts and his rentals, the whole thing could get quite expensive. Then there’s the need to diversify his investments…