the door,” he muttered to himself as the singing caught his attention, before wondering whether they might have seen or experienced anything strange out there in the night.
As misfortune would have it, the carollers stopped outside his front door. Mumbling profanely to himself, he was intent on remaining where he was and pretending not to be home rather than facing all of their Christmas spirit, their eager faces expecting him to reciprocate their Christmas joy and cheer, and probably give them something for their dismal efforts. Actually, while the singing was not outstanding, it was certainly not unimpressive. Rather, it was melodious and harmonious. But Screwge was determined to believe otherwise. He sat there trying to be as quiet as possible, nibbling at his fifth mince pie and carefully sipping the spiced wine while sitting very still, as if to avoid making any sound that would advertise the fact he was home.
On display in his front window were four long, red and gold tubular light decorations that lit up when he plugged them in, which he had twisted into words that read “Get lost” for all to see. This seemed, however, only to make people such as carollers and the odd “Santa” collecting charitable donations all the more determined to call at his house, as if trying to arouse some Christmas cheer in him. On a couple of occasions, he had mischievously placed chocolate money into the boxes they had waved in front of him, for his own amusement, though on reflection this seemed perhaps a little too puerile.
Eventually, after his doorbell had chimed loudly, to his displeasure, on two occasions, the sound of feet shuffling away indicated, to his relief, that the carol singers were leaving.
“Ah, they were all out of key anyway,” he moaned to himself, determined to justify his not having embraced their goodwill, deliberately dismissing the fact that they had actually been quite tuneful and somewhat pleasing to hear.
The minutes ticked by and he soon found himself sitting there staring contemplatively into space. His mind began to enter a detached, pensive state, mostly unaware of anything around him.
He was jarred back to his senses as something rather large over in the corner of the room suddenly caught his attention. His vision drawn sharply in this direction, he was met with the sight of none other than Santa Claus himself, that rotund, bearded, figure unmistakable, attired in his red suit. He was placing presents around the base of Screwge’s Christmas tree, not that Screwge would ever have recognised it as a Christmas tree. If anything, it was an anti-Christmas tree, a statement against Christmas.
Anyway, feeling slightly inebriated from imbibing all of that spiced wine, he got up. Santa turned towards him, looking upon this irritable, miserable individual before him.
“Merry Christmas,” chortled Santa, in his characteristically jolly manner.
“What the hell is this?!” bawled Screwge, demandingly, as he grabbed the shotgun.
He was quite taken aback and rather stunned and confounded, as well as being slightly alarmed and unnerved at the apparent genuineness of Santa Claus’s existence, so much so that he pointed the weapon at Santa, hastily and unthinkingly, reacting to the situation, and squeezed the trigger. A terribly harsh eruption of noise tore into the quietness of the room, but to Screwge’s astonishment, the shot seemed to simply dissolve into a mass of crackling sparks just as they were about to reach their target.
“I see you don’t have too much faith in the spirit of Christmas,” said Santa, his cheerfulness surprisingly undiminished, his mood and demeanour remaining unchanged.
“Who the hell are you?” asked a bewildered Screwge.
He simply could not accept something that seemed to make no logical sense to him.
“Why, who do you think I am? I’m Santa Claus. I must say, of all the people determined not to believe in my existence and to reject the spirit of Christmas, you are by far the worst case I have ever encountered,” said Santa, in a very enthusiastic, friendly manner. “I’ve come here to restore the sense of awe and joy that you once had each Christmas, all those years ago, before you became the cynical, cheerless man I see before me now,” Santa informed him. “Search your feelings. Allow that sense of elation and intense delight you once knew to re-emerge. Life hasn’t driven it from you fully.”
“What? How did you get in here?” asked a confounded Screwge, still desperately trying to make sense of what was happening. “That chimney’s not nearly big enough for you to fit down.”
Santa laughed.
“I’m afraid I never was one for climbing down chimneys, even when they were sufficiently large to accommodate my ample figure,” he told Screwge. “No, that’s all a myth.”
“Then how did you get in here?” persisted Screwge. “The doors are all locked.”
“Why, the same way I get into any house,” answered Santa, “I simply know where I’m supposed to be and I end up there, just like that. It’s magic, I suppose.”
“That’s impossible,” asserted a distrustful Screwge.
“Your refusal to accept all of this doesn’t make it any less real,” Santa pointed out.
“Now hold on!” said Screwge, sternly. “None of this makes any sense. Santa doesn’t make toys and deliver them to people. Kids want the latest computer games and all sorts of commercial brand name clothes and equipment and chocolates. Their parents get these things. Big companies manufacture them. How do you explain that?”
“Back in the North Pole, my team of elves spend their time designing and building all sorts of things. They’re actually exceptionally imaginative and clever. Most of them are virtual geniuses. It was they who designed and built my sleighs. But of course they don’t make any of the things that people receive as presents. And for the vast majority of people, I don’t personally deliver their gifts either,” Santa informed him, his tone then becoming more serious as he was about to impart some very important information that he needed Screwge to understand. “You see, it’s not about whether or not Santa Claus actually exists. It’s about the spirit of the season. It’s all about embracing the spirit of Christmas. I’m a fundamental feature in it all, so people welcome the idea of my existence because they believe in and gain a great deal of pleasure and enjoyment from all that is associated with Christmas, you see.”
Suddenly Screwge found himself soaring through the air in some kind of flying vehicle. Instantly he froze with the sheer surprise of it, grabbing the rail at the side as he flew over houses, quickly realising that he was in Santa’s sleigh. Nervously he peered over the side, gazing down at all the rooftops. Initially he was very uneasy and anxious, experiencing an intense surge of fright as he felt the sleigh swooping and accelerating back up high into the air. Holding onto the side for dear life, he glanced down a few times at the houses below as he shot across the night sky at an amazing speed.
He sat there nervously, his whole body tensing as the sleigh tilted and veered, the team of reindeer at the front dragging it through the air, apparently quite confident of where they were going. He could feel the potent pulling force of their combined power on the sleigh. Santa, he had quickly noticed, was sitting right alongside him. Surprisingly there was no wind blasting into him as it seemed there should have been, with the sleigh speeding, as it was, through the air. Everything around him remained calm and undisturbed.
“What the hell is this?” shouted Screwge, his tone, which should have been an irate, demanding one, mellowed as he realised he was experiencing a sense of euphoria, his anger and negativity dissolving away.
The feeling of joy was still mounting. He could not help smiling, though such feelings were largely foreign to him. He was just managing to repress the urge to laugh. Still slightly tense, he had relaxed considerably, although there was a lingering sense of bewilderment and mystery, which actually seemed quite appropriate.
“How can any of this be possible?” he asked, though now with a sense of intense and joyful wonderment and inspiration, unable to restrain a release of joyous laughter as he spoke.
“You’ll just have to accept that there is such a thing as magic.
People are too willing to reject this. They want to be able to understand things. But their understanding of the realities of nature and the universe is limited. Anything they don’t understand or that seems too incredible they dismiss as fantasy. They refuse to believe in me because my existence seems too far-fetched,” lamented Santa. “Anything too imaginative or fanciful is usually rejected. People have little time for magic or anything that exceeds their understanding.”
“But how do you explain all of this?” Screwge asked, persistently, referring to the fact of their soaring through the night air in a sleigh being pulled across the sky by reindeer on Christmas Eve.
“You just have to accept that it’s all part of the magic of Christmas. It’s quite beyond your level of thinking,” Santa informed him. “It transcends your normal reality.”
It was remarkably and strangely calm where they were sitting. Surely there should have been air rushing into them, blowing them wildly and drowning out their voices, but instead it was quiet and very serene.
“But what about all the presents people get?” enquired an intrigued Screwge. “You obviously don’t deliver those.”
Suddenly the sleigh shot upwards, producing a powerful feeling of exhilaration as it climbed high into the night sky before levelling off,