Real Santa [Hardcover]

George Kronenfeldt is an unemployed engineer with one shot to keep his daughter's belief in Santa intact. When Megan tells him the only way she will believe in Santa is if she can videotape him and then tells her fourth grade class she will prove the existence of Santa Claus by posting her video to YouTube, George realizes he must become the Real Santa. He devises a plan to land nine reindeer on his roof and go down his chimney, hiring a broken down movie director who eventually has him funding a full scale production that bankrupts him and threatens his marriage. When George goes to find the ???Real Santa??? to help him, the line between what is real and magic is crossed. Real Santa is a funny heartwarming story of parenthood gone wrong and illuminates what lengths parents will go to keep their children happy.In a fit of inspired insanity, a laid-off suburban father decides to prove to his 9-year-old daughter that there really is a Santa Claus. Never doubt the determination of a mad scientist and his plans. In this sixth novel from prolific writer and blogger Hazelgrove (The Pitcher, 2013, etc.), the author marries the everyday dramas found in the novels of Tom Perrotta and Nick Hornby to the high camp of Carl Hiaasen or Dave Barry. His protagonist is an aging engineer named George Krononfeldt who is promptly laid off from his firm for his increasingly cranky attitude. Simultaneously, his daughter Megan is slowly being poisoned of her belief in Christmas-y myths by her hateful teacher, Mrs. Worthington. I will kick Santa squarely in the nuts once and for all, she proclaims during one of her darker moments. Undetermined, George starts sketching out plans to give his daughter???who has inherited her father's penchant for requiring empirical data to prove a coherent thesis???one more Christmas miracle. I'm going to be the Real Santa, George tells his father, whom he enlists in aid of the outlandish project. I'm going to land a sled on the roof, go up the chimney,lsj