Today, Santa Claus is making his arrival at Galleria Dallas. You might think Santa Claus doesn’t have to follow COVID-19 restrictions. You might be a fool.

You see, at approximately 1,750 years old, Santa Claus is in a high risk category for severe symptoms from COVID-19 [especially if he’s diabetic from all the cookies my brothers and I left for him back at the house].

This year, Santa stays behind plexiglass. Families have to make reservations. But then Santa already knows your name when you show up, and you can also upload your Christmas list before you come.

Families can even set up virtual visits this year.

“It’s about time Santa jumped into the 21st century,” an elf really did explain to me.

His name, and I swear I’m not making this up, is Tinsel McJingles III. I hope the elf is not reprimanded for speaking with me [“Don’t burn your elf sources,” one of my journalism professors once explained], but McJingles is part of Snowday 2020, a walk-through exhibition at the Galleria with 11 rooms featuring different Christmas scenes.

Snowday 2020 was designed before society was discontinued, but it works great because each room is only big enough for one family at a time.

It’s also touch-free. They gave me a wrist band to hold up to a [pardon the technical terms] type of thing that would start a countdown and then take a picture.

One of the rooms features the Griswold house.

Another allowed you to take a picture of yourself in an upside down kitchen for some reason.

Look at the emotion I’m displaying!

“I’m not entirely sure how I’m supposed to feel about this,” I explained while descending from the ceiling. “If this is from a Christmas movie, I do not recall which one. Is there a Christmas movie featuring a bat?”

The rooms had a wide variety of scenes that would be great for families, where you could pose in a hall of mirrors or on the moon with Santa in some sort of Death Star.

Or you could get a photo opp with a polar bear, where, because a reporter asks, I inquired about where one might find a tutu in the Arctic Circle.

Businesses at Galleria Dallas are just glad to have people back. Some of the people shopping were also getting cabin fever and just glad to get out of the house and let their kids talk to Santa, even if they can’t sit on his lap.

No one was saying, “It’s too early to put up Christmas decorations!” This isn’t the year for that. We’ve all had a tough year, so, at the risk of editorializing, let’s Christmas it up.

The Galleria can’t open the ice rink. In a normal year, they’re very vocal that their tree is taller than the tree at Rockefeller Center and more people skate around the Texas tree than the Rockefeller Center tree.

It’s possible the skating rink inside the Galleria is not subject to snow storms.

But the key is to remember even Santa is adjusting. Also, New York isn’t better than Texas.