As the baby in a family of intellectuals, I was desperately eager to start school and be like everybody else in my family. Grade One had its disappointments: the book selection was woefully inadequate, several of the children were remarkably slow to pick up on new ideas, and Stevie – the other near-midget in the class – would chase me down the hallway every day trying to kiss me when we went to the caretaker’s room to get special blocks to put under our feet so they wouldn’t dangle at our Grade One desks. But like most Grade One students, I was eager to please my teacher and took her word as gospel.
My brothers, parents and I were the only Jews in the world as far as I could tell, so when Christmas rolled around I was suddenly confronted by serious cognitive dissonance. My beloved teacher, Mrs. Smith, and all my classmates were getting excited about the coming of Santa Claus, who would be laden with gifts for us. They were even writing letters to Santa, listing out what presents they wanted. This was a new concept for me. We had recently moved to Edmonton, so I thought maybe Santa was an Edmonton thing and I started daydreaming about what Santa might bring me. I was worried though: some people said that Santa came into your house through the chimney, but our Edmonton house didn’t have a fireplace, the way our Winnipeg house had.
“Don’t worry,” my best friend, Carol, reassured me. “Santa will figure out a way. We don’t have a fireplace either, but every Christmas morning there are gifts from him under the tree.”
I loved the idea of a tree in the living room, all decorated and sparkly, with gifts underneath it. At Carol’s house it even had candy canes dangling from it, and you could take them off and eat them when her parents weren’t looking. Sadly, there was no convincing my parents that we should have one of those decorated indoor trees. I worried about where Santa would put the presents even if he did manage to get in without a fireplace, but decided he could leave them anywhere.
As we got closer to the Christmas holidays the teacher informed us that we’d be performing a play for all the other children and families. When I got home that day I was bursting with my news.
“Guess what, Mommy? We’re doing a play and I get to play the part of Mary, the mother of baby Jesus!”
“You can’t do that,” snarled my oldest brother. “That’s a Christmas story. It’s for Christians. You’re Jewish.”
My heart sank. My mother stepped in to the rescue.
“Mary was Jewish. So it’s perfectly reasonably for your sister to play the part of Mary.”
Ha! Take that, big brother!
On Christmas Eve, as we were sitting around the dinner table, I brought up the fact that Santa Claus could get into houses even if they didn’t have chimneys, and that tomorrow morning there would be gifts for us.
My brother, who was still smarting from the Mary mistake, said, “There is no Santa Claus. That’s just a made-up story Christians tell their kids.”
“There is so,” I insisted. “All my friends got presents from him last year and they’re going to again this year, and now that we live in Edmonton we will too.”
My other brother, the middle child, who normally kept out of the arguments between the eldest and me, joined in on the no-Santa side.
“But there has to be a Santa,” I said. “Mrs. Smith said there is, and she wouldn’t lie to us.”
My parents explained that sometimes adults make up stories to entertain children, and this was just one of those stories. They almost had me convinced, when there was a knock at the door. Wanting to get away from the argument, I ran to answer it.
I opened the door, and there was a big, rotund man in a fleecy red suit with furry white trim. He wore a red toque with a white brim and white pom-pom. His beard was full and white as well. His eyes sparkled. He said, “Ho, ho, ho! Have you been a good little girl this year?”
I nodded. My heart sang. For once, I was right and they were wrong. Here was the living proof that Santa was real! I turned and saw my family members behind me, looking astonished. I beamed.
Then I turned back to Santa. “We don’t have a chimney, but my friends said you like milk and cookies. Do you want to come in and have some?”
“Why, that would be lovely,” he said, and we all went into the kitchen. He chatted with my parents, who may have given him something a little stronger than milk to drink with his cookies. When he was done, he turned to us kids and said, “Now you be sure to get to bed early, because I can’t come back with your presents until you’re asleep.” Then he headed out the door, with another “Ho, ho, ho.”
My brothers and parents dropped the argument about Santa. I went to bed happy, secure in the knowledge that this time I had been the one who knew the real facts.
Oddly, I don’t remember what must have been crushing disappointment when there were no presents waiting in the morning. I guess that momentary sense of triumph was the only gift I needed.
Hi Tema… what a FUNtabulous story!!! Who played Santa???
nowgogetpumped!!!
But who WAS the mysterious Santa?
What a lovely story. If you had been in my class in grade one, I’m fairly sure I would hope that I would have been your friend even then and brought you a holiday present! We did do gift exchanges and I remember one year the person who drew my name didn’t bring a gift. I was crushed but when I got home my mother said, ‘an elf had dropped it off at the house instead’ and promptly gave me a little gift. Sometimes it’s up to parents to anticipate a child’s disappointment and find a creative solution.