Houston Hotel Ruins Perfectly Good Half-Ton Chocolate Santa Claus By Making Him Inedible

These tiny Santas will never grow up to be half-ton Santas, but you can eat them. (Wayne Gunn)

You know the only thing wrong with a half-ton chocolate Santa Claus? No, not the 2.5 million calories he’s made of — calories don’t matter during the holidays or whenever a half-ton chocolate figurine is at stake. It’s the fact that the Houston hotel that has him on display has made it so no one can eat Santa. No one.

It’s a darn shame to remark on the existence of such a hefty bit of chocolate knowing the Santa will live out his days un-ingested, but I guess it’s kind of neat that someone made him in the first place.

The half-ton chocolate St. Nick greets guests in the lobby of the Hilton Americas in Houston, and will be at his post until Dec. 30, reports the Houston Chronicle. The Geppetto responsible for Santa is a pastry chef from the hotel’s own kitchen, who also created a chocolate scene with elves and presents.

He used 1,000 pounds of dark chocolate and chocolate dough, according to a hotel spokeswoman, while other helpers made gingerbread bricks for the scene’s fireplace and chimney. And then, after 400 hours of work spread over months… he painted it over with inedible lacquer. SIGH.

That’s because Santa must rise again next Christmas, after spending the off-season in cold storage at the hotel.

“We are going to add on to each it year,” says the spokeswoman. “Next year it will be even larger.”

Larger, and still inedible. What is this world we live in?

Houston hotel displays 2.5 million-calorie chocolate Santa sculpture [Houston Chronicle]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist