Santa Claus is taking the Christmas season out of this world during Toll Gate High School’s “Blastoff with Santa Bash,” to be held Sunday, Dec. 15 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the school’s cafeteria.

The free event, organized by social arts coordinator Shana Willis and the Toll Gate National Honor Society, will feature pictures with Santa in space and more than vendors.

Additionally, children can enjoy games and activities, including ornament making and pin-the-nose on Olaf from “Frozen.”

“This is the first one that we’ve done and we’ve been planning it for a couple of months,” Willis said. “We teamed up with the MobileQuest STEM Center to provide this free event. This event came together because the National Honor Society was looking to do a community event and we wanted to do a free Santa event.”

MobileQuest’s mission is to provide STEM – or science, technology, engineering and math – content to children in an engaging way.

“We chose a space theme because MobileQuest has a green screen and it allows us to put different backgrounds with Santa,” Willis said. “You might have your picture taken with you and Santa getting abducted by aliens, you could be in outer space looking at the stars, or you could be in a snow globe.”

Willis was clear that the event is not a fundraiser.

“It’s just to provide a fun, family, free event. As far as the school is concerned, it’s not a fundraiser to make money. It’s just to promote community spirit,” she said, noting that the games and crafts are being donated by the Honor Society and the photographer is involved with MobilQuest.

The event will feature local vendors including Pebble Art, Hidden Treasure Jewelry and Water Spirits Jewelry.

“We also have over 25 different vendors at the event so parents can do last-minute shopping” Willis said. “There are a lot of different artists that will sell different paintings or different jewelry. There’s also a fantastic gentleman that creates characters out of paper, and some of it is unbelievable. We will also have some knitters, crocheting, and homemade treats for people to buy.”

Additionally, children can take part in a karate demonstration and interact with coded robots.

“We have something for all ages,” Willis said. “MobileQuest is bringing robots for the kids to interact with. They won’t be person sized, but they’re more high-tech than remote controlled robots.”