Mall Santas brave the pandemic with plexiglass barriers, sanitation elves and snow-globe bubbles

Santa Claus is coming to town with a few extra precautions this year.

Old Saint Nick will pose for photos from inside an acrylic snow globe in Richmond. He’ll be barricaded behind a eight-foot picture frame in Lakewood, Colo. And in Gruene, Tex., Cowboy Kringle, who wears red leather chaps and a cowboy hat, will keep socially distant by asking visitors to sit on a saddle positioned six feet away.

This year’s holiday photos will have a decidedly pandemic feel: No more sitting on Kriss Kringle’s lap or whispering in...