Shopping mall Santa loses his job after telling 3-year-old the Leafs suck

Santa, who isn't being very good today.

Here's what what we know about Santa: He lives at the North Pole. He rides a sleigh led by eight or nine reindeer, depending on the weather. He has a big, white beard.

And, as it turns out, he thinks the Toronto Maple Leafs suck.

According to Mary Trent of Mississauga, Ontario, when she brought her 3-year-old son to visit Santa Claus at Lowe's Toronto Christmas Market, Kris Kringle started crackin' wise. First, he told the kid his red plaid jacket made him look like Paul Bunyan. Then, if bewildering a small boy with a centuries-old pop culture reference wasn't enough, Trent says Santa next turned his attention to the boy's favourite hockey team.

From the Toronto Sun:

"Then he said, 'Oh, you're wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs tuque, you shouldn't be wearing that, they suck.' At that point, I took my son and told him we should go, Santa isn't being very good today."

Trent said her son was inconsolable and cried all the way home to Mississauga.

"He wanted to know who Paul Bunyan was? He wanted to know why Santa said the Toronto Maple Leafs suck," Trent told the Sun Thursday. "I told him Santa was having a bad day. I can't really tell him Santa's a jerk."

But Santa's a jerk and kids need to know. When I was 8, I asked him for a pair of moon shoes and I did not receive moon shoes. Unreliable, that's what he is.

And as for why Santa might have said the Toronto Maple Leafs suck... well, Santa knows who's been naughty and who's been nice, and the Leafs have been naughty for nearly a decade. Still, you'd think jolly old St. Nicholas could refrain from chirping a three-year old about it. Apparently not.

Trent took her concerns online, posting the story of her son's discouraging encounter to the market's Facebook page. She received a swift apology. As for Santa? He wasn't just told to be good, for goodness' sake. He was fired.

It was a small consolation for Trent.

"I just don't want other kids to have to go through this," she told the Toronto Sun.

Granted, that might be a bit optimistic. People will be telling this poor boy the the Leafs suck for the rest of his life.

But nobody wants to hear it from Santa.

s/t to Backhand Shelf.

Follow Harrison Mooney on Twitter at @HarrisonMooney