This is not a chance we’d like to take.”
“Oh my,” sighed Santa. “What a position!
I’ll answer you on one condition—believe anyway.”
And he sat back down upon the chair
And met them with a loving stare,
“I may not always look the same,
But Santa is my one true name.”
Said Kaij, “We mean no disrespect,
But I’m afraid that we suspect
That not all Santas can be real
And you’re in on this impostor deal.”
“Mom says Santa,” said Stefanie,
“Is not one that you ever see,
You and others in disguise
Are merely Santa’s helper guys.”
“If that’s the case,” Dakota said,
“How can we trust any man in red?
You must admit there is a danger,
When sharing wishes with a stranger.”
“Ah,” said Santa, “A point well taken
I can see that your faith’s been shaken.
You want to know if wishes are heard
By the one true Santa? You have my word.
“No matter which man plays the part,
Your wish goes straight to Santa’s heart.”
And here he softly tapped his chest
The very part that kids know best.
“It’s not a question of real or fake
Believing is a choice you make.”
So once again the large man stood,
And reminded them firmly to be good.
He left them there to sit and think,
But through the doorway gave a wink.
So quietly they left the floor,
Eyes still on the classroom door.
After all, it gives a person pause
To think they’d just met Santa Claus.
So was he the real one? They’ll never know,
But outside the window fell flakes of snow.
~Michelle D. Halperin
Reindeer Magic
Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.
~Norman Vincent Peale
It was magic. The Christmas etched indelibly in my mind was the type of Christmas that greeting cards depict and poems are written about. As a young child I was being driven “over the hills and through the woods” to my grandmother’s home in Sussex, Wisconsin. We slipped and slid over icy roads. My dad, the determined driver, managed to maneuver us out of a snow bank as my mom sat by his side.
There I was, the Mississippi-born girl, bouncing in the back seat asking, “When will we be there, when are we ever going to be there?” This was to be my first Christmas in Wisconsin with my mom’s family.
We were to arrive early afternoon on Christmas Eve but because of the ice and snow we were much later than planned. The skies darkened early as the weather worsened. There was tension in the car between my parents. They worried for our safety. My excitement couldn’t be contained, for this was pure adventure.
Hugs, screams, and shouts of welcome met us as the door opened and my aunts, uncles, and grandmother rushed to greet us. We unloaded the car and my family began piling food and goodies on the table for us to eat. There was “soft talk” in the background. “Grown-up” talk about roads being closed and how thankful they were we’d traveled safely. Uncle Bud broke out his special dominos—a favorite activity for him and my dad. My mom huddled with her mom and sisters catching up on all the news.
I realized that my family had very different speaking voices than I did. There were things in this unique home I’d never seen before. The quiet and calm of the rooms seemed filled with expectation. Christmas was almost here.
Outside the snow grew heavier. The sights, smells, and thoughts I experienced that night would be part of this Christmas memory forever.
Cuddled down after some hot chocolate and my grandmother’s one-of-a-kind “lifelike cut-out cookies,” I yawned. Meme’s antique couch cushioned every inch of my body. My uncle sat down beside me and I snuggled into his arms. The family drifted into the room, dimmed the lights, lit the tree, and whispered their words.
I heard things like, “Where should she sleep?” I knew they meant me.
I’d not considered sleeping in this strange place but guessed that was in the plan. A bed was readied and I was snuggled into warm pajamas. The biggest, fluffiest blankets covered me. It was to be a cold night. The snow continued to deepen.
“Reindeer.” I heard that word from my uncle. I’d been a little concerned about Santa. We were eight hundred miles from home. Would he find me? Would I get any Christmas gifts? My parents assured me they’d left a note for him and he’d know exactly where to leave my presents. I wasn’t at all sure he would find this house.
My uncle Dave had a sleigh. I’d been told he’d hook up the horse and I’d get to ride in a one horse open sleigh complete with bells. How could I go to sleep with the prospect of Santa coming and my own sleigh ride the next day?
“Reindeer bells.” My ears perked up. I was told, “If you go to bed soon you will probably hear the reindeer tonight. Children do hear them every year. In fact, not only will you hear their bells, you will see their footprints in the snow tomorrow morning!”
It was hard to catch my breath at the thought of hearing the bells and then seeing their footprints. I tried “not” to sleep. I lay in the bed listening, waiting, and straining to hear every creak and groan of the house. Fatigue took over my body and while listening to adults talking and getting themselves ready for bed, my sleep came.
The room was dark as my eyes opened. The house was quiet. It was hard to remember where I was. My eyes became accustomed to the dark and my breathing stopped as I heard a bell. The ringing was a gentle, mellow sound and it was not inside the house. It was assuredly outside. It was the sound of reindeer bells.
My mom and dad were asleep. Would they hear the bells? Wide awake, I lay perfectly still, for as long as I could. Sleep soon came again.
Sunlight streamed in the window. Even the curtains that hung there are etched in my memory. My family woke me with shouts of, “Merry Christmas! Santa visited us last night! Did you hear the reindeer?”
I remember jumping up and my uncle ushering me to the window.
“Look! Look right out there! Do you see the hoof prints? There they are!”
They were there. Hoof prints were clearly in the snow.
Breakfast couldn’t have been better. The tree could not have been more beautiful, the day couldn’t have possibly been more wondrous. It was the Christmas a little girl would only dream of and I would experience once in my life. The ride in the one-horse open sleigh with my uncle Dave and my cousin Donna was all I’d hoped. We were all snuggled down in the blanket and the horse decked in bells. The ride through the hills and dales of the family farm was like a fairytale.
I have held the memory of the bells and the hoof prints in the snow all these years. Christmas brings a sense of sweet nostalgia and the little girl inside my soul will always recall the Wisconsin Christmas filled with reindeer magic.
~Marilyn Ross
Some Assembly Required
There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.
~G.K. Chesterton
There is a phrase that strikes terror in the heart of any parent, especially on Christmas Eve. It’s those three little words—just three. But say those words to parents and you will see fear in their eyes. They may scream. They may cry. Some will instantly turn into blubbering idiots. And what are those three words of horror?
“Some assembly required.”
You see, when a toy box says “some assembly required,” it doesn’t mean that you might have to spend ten minutes or so putting together a plastic castle complete with knights and a moat. No, it means you need a degree in architecture, an entire toolkit scaled to the castle’s proportions and the ability to read and understand 392 pages of instr
uctions written in Sanskrit.
And that’s just to get the castle parts out of the box.
Now there are people—men—who believe that they don’t need the instructions. No, they will run around, beat their chests and yell, “Instructions? I don’t need no stinking instructions!” Then they will dump the 1,528 castle pieces in a pile on the floor and proceed to assemble something that looks like a cross between an Easy Bake Oven and a Labrador Retriever—but which in no way resembles a castle.
Women, on the other hand, love to read instructions. We don’t actually want to assemble the stupid castle, but we want to tell the man making the castle exactly how to do it. This doesn’t endear us to the man who is putting the castle together. In fact, castle assembly arguments are the leading cause of divorce in this country.
Occasionally, more than one man will attempt to build the castle. This is a very, very bad idea. For some reason, men see castle assembly as a challenge. They must win against the castle, no matter what. And if another man steps in to help with the castle, it becomes an even bigger challenge. The first guy is no longer just battling a castle with 1,528 pieces; he’s also battling his best friend who just had to stick his nose into the castle assembly process. Soon, the battle escalates into a full-blown testosterone war, and a challenge is issued.
Man 1: I can build that castle in two hours.
Man 2: I can build that castle in an hour.
Man 1: I can build that castle in fifteen minutes, without once glancing at the instructions.
Man 2: Build that castle!
And that is how the drawbridge ends up on the wrong side of the moat.
Once the drawbridge is fixed, the men will circle the castle, thumping their chests with pride for a job well done. Unfortunately, they aren’t finished. You see, no castle is complete without teeny, tiny decals that have to be stuck onto the castle pieces. Some of these decals are so small they are not visible to the naked eye. You need special glasses and tweezers just to apply them.
And the decals are always either too small or too large for the castle part they need to be stuck on. Even if you are lucky enough to find a castle part and decal that are perfectly sized, the decal always ends up crooked. Or upside down. Or ripped and then painstakingly pieced back together.
About this time, one of the chest thumpers discovers that the decals are supposed to be put on before the castle is assembled. So now the entire castle has to be taken apart, decals put on and then reassembled.
Many men have failed at this point. They may try to block the pain by drinking large amounts of alcohol. Unfortunately, women will step in and try to help. They’ll mix drinks or maybe call customer service. Neither works. For one thing, customer service is only open on weekdays from 9 to 5 when no one in the entire world is trying to assemble toys. And you should never drink and assemble. You don’t even want to imagine what the castle will look like after the assembler has a few Mai Tai’s under his belt.
So what is a parent to do? First, throw the decals away. And then don’t worry about the castle. Because once it is set up in the playroom, your kid will move the knights around and make sure the water in the moat is real. And then he’ll be bored and want to play with something else.
And, of course, that toy needs just a little assembly. Relax. Have a hot cocoa with schnapps—you’ll feel better.
~Laurie Sontag
The Voice of Santa Claus
No road is long with good company.
~Turkish Proverb
Driving after midnight was always peaceful. The midnight sky in West Texas after a Christmas Eve service, well, that is in a class all to itself. The deep navy sky punctuated with stars shining like crystals hanging from a chandelier was nothing new. Driving along a highway in far West Texas, we might as well have been the only people in the world. There were no lights, no other vehicles, no towns. Just absolute dark pierced by the stars and our car lights. No sound other than the hum of tires on the highway and the soft sounds of my daughters.
Usually my daughters slept the thirty-five miles back to the ranch. This night was different. Six-year-old Mitty was uncharacteristically fussy and tired. She wanted to be home in her bed. Her big sister, Sarah, tried to dissuade her, but there was no distracting Mitty from her thoughts, and disappointment was sure to follow. Suddenly, I thought of the CB radio. I plucked the mike off the seat and handed it over the back to Mitty, suggesting she try calling Santa. She looked doubtful but at least it would keep her occupied. Her older sister Sarah wanted a little peace and quiet as well, so she too encouraged her to call Santa.
“Breaker one nine, this is the Little Peanut calling for Santa.”
“Santa? Are you there?” The only sounds were the humming of tires and static on the radio. Tears came to my eyes at the innocence of this precious child. We waited. She repeated her call.
“Breaker one nine for the Jolly Elf. This is the Little Peanut. Over.”
Soft static from the radio and the soft hum of night driving. Nothing else.
“Aw, Mom. There probably isn’t really a Santa Claus.” Disappointed silence.
As she handed the mike over the seat there was crackling of static and the sound that comes with thumbing the mike.
“Come back Little Peanut. This is the Jolly Elf. What are you doing up so late?” Mitty gasped. Sarah sat up straighter in the backseat. I felt a huge lump in my throat.
Mitty took back the mike and stammered, “This is the Little Peanut. Where are you Santa? What’s your twenty?”
“Well, Little Peanut, I’m somewhere overhead and I can’t finish my evening until you are in bed asleep.”
“I’ve been to midnight mass, Santa. We are almost home. Please wait. Over.”
“This is the Jolly Old Elf. You go straight to bed. I’ll wait, Little Peanut. Out.”
By then I was unashamedly crying. I had thought I knew most of the voices on our tower, but that night it was a stranger’s voice.
It was the voice of Santa.
~Sally Baggett Griffis
A Trip to Santasy Land
Santa is very jolly because he knows where all the bad girls live.
~Dennis Miller
I’ve celebrated Christmas exactly one day in my life. No, make that twelve hours. It was Christmas Eve day in Sausalito, California and I was breakfasting with my friend Steve when we started talking about the Christmas hubbub.
“Miami Beach wasn’t the Mecca of Christmasville,” I said recalling my childhood. “Aside from being eighty degrees, all of my friends and I were Jewish. Still I loved how Christmas made people friendlier, more open, more giving. What about you?” I asked.
Steve, a prominent attorney, whose nickname was “Tubby,” wiped the cream cheese from his lips.
“I always thought it was cool that Santa could get the girls to sit on his lap.” His blue eyes twinkled. “Wanna be an elf?”
“What?”
“You could be my elf and I could be Santa.”
“And...?”
“We could hitchhike into San Francisco and see what Christmas is like.”
No stranger to Steve’s antics, I had a decade worth of stories with him.
“Hmm, well we don’t have any plans,” I said. “I can easily do elf.” After all I was 4’10”, I had tights, and this was the 1970s. “Sounds good,” I said. “I’m in.”
We called a local costume shop.
“We’ve got one Santa suit left. If you can get here in thirty minutes, it’s yours.”
The next thing we knew, we were fully suited up: Santa, his beard, and his bag of goodies, a hastily assembled assortment of toys picked up at a drugstore, and I in green tights, a leotard and streaming scarves. We walked to Bridgeway, the main street in Sausalito. Feeling suddenly conspicuous in the glaring sunshine with a crowd watching, we realized there was only one thing to do—stick out our thumbs.
A gleaming BMW screeched to a halt.
“Lost your sled Santa? Where are you going?”
“Anywhere in San Francisco.”
“Hop in,” he said, “and watch out for your sack of toys. Hey, my advertising firm is hosting a party on a yacht. Do you want to come?”
“Wherever Santa and his elf can bring the most joy is where we’ll go,” Santa replied.
He was fully and deeply into his Santa-sy, I thought. This was going to be some ride. I stifled the laughter, but the glances we exchanged shared our unspoken promise to remain Santa and elf for the duration of our journey.
We arrived at the yacht and were escorted aboard. A collection of elegantly attired executives turned towards us. Unbeknownst to us we were with the owner of the poshest advertising firm in San Francisco. All eyes were on us, expecting a show, a showering of gifts, a something, but feeling a little peckish we headed to the hors d’oeuvre table.
“So really, who are you? What are you going to do?” dogged the tall Armani-clad man inspecting Santa’s face.
“Well, I’m going to have a little snack right now. I’ve got a big night ahead,” said Santa, swallowing his gravlax and caper canapé. “I’m in the toy business. Tonight’s our busy night.” Santa continued munching. “Brought one of my best elves to help.” He gestured towards me as if it were necessary. Thoroughly confused by our non-performing performance, the adman skulked away. We schmoozed, scarfed down some more hors d’oeuvres, said a few “Ho Ho Ho’s,” and disembarked as mysteriously as we’d arrived.
Once on the street, we stuck out our thumbs. As if we’d summoned Rudolph, within seconds, a limo was chauffeuring us to our next party. The entire night a fleet was at our disposal: limos, sports cars, pick-up trucks and we selected our “sleighs” solely on whim.
After a few parties we felt stuffed. Needing fresh air and a new plan we started walking the streets. The Christmas lights twinkled. The air was chilled. We were basking in the wonder of it all when an elderly woman suddenly walked up to Santa, grabbed his arm, and looked him square in the eyes.
“I have always loved you, Santa.”
“And I have always loved you,” said Santa giving her a warm and gentle hug. By now Santa’s sack weighed heavy. “We’ve got toys to deliver,” he said with a grin.