Santa, Maybe?
My parents have never told me that there’s no Santa Claus.
And I’ve asked.
A LOT.
I started to ask because other kids said that there wasn’t a Santa. That Santa didn’t exist. That not only did our parents create this massive lie, they were actually the perpetrators of the ruse. And they were all, every one of them - co-conspirators. Hot co-conspirators. With mini marshmallows.
I saw their point. My house had a chimney, but no fireplace, so what was that about? And it took me twenty minutes on foot to walk to my friend’s house across town so I was VERY interested in this time-space sled-travel magic. Plus, that many cookies consumed in one sitting HAS to lead to an early death, so, as a kid, I conceded that it was possible that Santa wasn’t real.
To the source!
“Mom? Dad? Are you…Santa?”
But they didn’t give me the answer I wanted to hear.
They told me that Santa is modeled after St. Nicolas, and then encouraged me to learn about him. They told me that there were different ways that people celebrated Christmas - and gave my sister and me books about CHRISTMAS AROUND THE WORLD. We learned not all Christmases were snowy, and some kids got presents in their shoes, not their stockings. All kids don’t want to wind up on the naughty list and coal isn’t so bad compared with what our Nordic neighbors have to deal with.
Krampus. You are the stuff of nightmares.
My parents told me about the ways that people didn’t celebrate Christmas. In broad brushstrokes, they painted the difference between culturally adopted celebrations and religious ones…but we went to Catholic school as kids. While it made sense on paper that not everyone celebrated the season the same way we did, everyone in our snow globe did.
Even the kids who didn’t observe Christmas at home still sang Joy to the World in choir. Still plopped cotton balls in a lumpy fashion to make a beard for Kris Kringle. Still lit advent wreaths and prepared themselves for a King that didn’t exist for them outside of the school day.
Which is to say that in my youth, the Christmas season was VERY Christmassy. All the Advent. All the carols. All the merry. (All the Mary, too.) The month(ish) between Thanksgiving and December 25th was a big deal in our house. Which came to a cumulation with an explosion of presents under the tree on Christmas morning.
And I was determined to get my parents to tell me once and for all how they got there.
Sneaking up on my dad, a stealthy elf tugging on his beard and demanding to know how he colludes with reindeer when I knew for a FACT he barely tolerates our cats. He had a bowlful-of-jelly-belly and twinkling blue eyes and - especially in later years when his hair turned white - was a pretty good ringer for Mr. Claus. I wanted to know if he WAS Santa.
But he wouldn’t tell me.
And my mom wouldn’t either.
One year, I woke up to use the bathroom and heard rustling down the stairs. My mom was at the stockings with a trash bag at her feet. “M…mom?” I said, bleary eyed. “GO BACK TO SLEEP!” she hissed, attempting to kick the bag out of frame.
The next morning when I brought it up, my mother feigned total ignorance. “I’m sure I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. I was asleep. In my bed. Waiting for Christmas morning to arrive so I could share in the joy of the day with you. And, of course, to see all of the presents which are entirely a surprise to ME, too. As well. Also, you know, the shock of the presents. Which here-to-fore I knew nothing about!”
Did it sound a little suspicious? Sure. But even I knew my mother wouldn’t store our presents in a trash bag. What if they accidentally were mistaken for, you know, trash? What if the whole bag got thrown away and we lost a year’s worth of presents? Obviously, my parents weren’t that stupid.
So I made the wise and incredibly astute assumption that Santa had some sort of ripcord he could pull that would cast a spell of concealment to shift his appearance and voice into that of a parental figure’s. That same magic masked all of Claus’ accoutrement - changing a red velvet bag into a black plastic one - because Santa didn’t want to startle a sleepy child with either his presence or his presents.
It was the only logical explanation. If you can bring toys to all the kids in the world in one night, concealment spells aren’t that much of a leap.
The kids at school didn’t think so, though. As the years went by, I couldn’t get a straight answer. Things got a bit more intense at the Scully abode.
Ever notice how sucking on a candy cane basically turns it into a shiv? And mistle toe is quite poisonous. Kevin McAllister had some pretty good tips on how to deal with liars and cheats. I had my eyes set on merry mayhem.
"No, you tell me, mom. You. TELL. Me. Mother." I would practice in the mirror, garland whip at my hip, icicle knives at the ready. “Explain to me this receipt that includes SEVERAL of the items that came from Santa, daddy-dearest. Or should I say…Mr. Claus????”
But I figured follow-through on that plan would land me on Santa’s naughty list for sure. I couldn’t risk nepotism being the only get out of jail free card if it turned out my parents weren’t, in fact, Santa.
So instead of stabbing their heart strings, I tugged them.
“One day I’m going to have kids. They’re going to want to experience Christmas. I’m going to wake up with them all excited to see what
Santa put under the tree. But there’s not going to be any presents, will there? Because I left it up to Santa to do. And Santa doesn’t exist, does he?!?”
Even their hypothetical grandchildren wouldn’t get them to budge. My parents never told me that there’s no Santa. And I’m not sure why I wanted them to.
Maybe I figured having someone to blame for the absence of Santa - the embodiment of wonder and winter magic - felt a lot less tragic than choosing not to believe on my own.
Magic forms in many ways, and I gotta say: This is one of them. The stubborn refusal to verify what you suspect is true, but can't really claim with certainty, because there is an element of imagination injected that outranks logic. The stubborn cling of possibility. Hope, and the miraculous power of belief.
Secular or spiritual, there’s magic in make believe. You get a pretty good idea and you cling on. And if that pretty good idea has you scanning the stars at night, looking for confirmation of Claus, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
You stand outside, look up, and wonder.
Magic forms. You make believe.
What my parents didn't say, all those years ago, is that when there are kids in your life who celebrate Christmas - on the spectrum of secular or spiritual their family chooses to express - you suddenly become Santa yourself.
At the beginning of this month, my sister said to me "How do you make the magic of Christmas?"
“Leave it up to Santa, I suppose.” I said. And christened myself head elf, to help the jolly guy out.
So, yes, my parents were Santa. My grandparents, too. My aunt and my uncle, who always made sure that we had gifts to unwrap, even if their name was on the check that paid for them, but not the card that said who it was from. Friends have been Santa, celebrating with me when my family was 3,000 miles away. And strangers have been Santa - dressed up to look like him, or using the afore mentioned concealment spell to disguise themselves so as not to alarm anyone who spots them out and about.
Today marked my 37th Christmas morning. And Santa found me. As he has, every year. No matter the sky I stood under. No matter who I stood under it with.
Every year, then:
Look up. Wonder.
Make (yourself) believe.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading. 💚
-A
