|
Santa Claus: A Dilemma
by Sara Ging The Christmas before I turned eight is still one of my clearest memories of childhood. I woke up to sun shining brightly on freshly-fallen snow. Apart from being slightly lop-sided, the tree with its twinkling lights could have been something right out of a movie. A fire crackled in the hearth. My father must have gotten up extra early to have it roaring by then. There were mountains of presents underneath the tree, and generally speaking it was as idyllic a Christmas morning as anyone could possibly have imagined. By the time I came downstairs, each of my three siblings had a gift in hand, ready to rip and shred and otherwise maul the bright wrapping paper. No one could open presents unless we were all there, that was the rule, and I was the last one up—a rarity for the youngest of the family. “Finally,” someone sighed, exasperated. My three older siblings all looked to my mother, who nodded, and they tore into their gifts. I went and sat by the fireplace. I ignored the packages with my name on them. After a few minutes (in which everyone else’s presents were uncovered and scattered around the room), my mother came over to me. “Don’t you want to see what you got?” she said gently. I shook my head. “You won’t even look in your stocking?” my father pressed. “No thank you,” I said stubbornly. I got up and went back upstairs. I lay atop my covers in a resentful daze. It wasn’t long before my older sister Rebecca, with whom I shared the room, stuck her head in. “Suck it up, short stack,” she said, cheerfully unsympathetic. “At least they told you. I had to find out when I got up to pee and they were filling our stockings.” Becca was twelve and pretty much the worst. It seemed only natural that she would take such a betrayal in stride. I didn’t move. She poked me a couple of times in the side and tried singing rude versions of Christmas carols that she’d heard in middle school, but I didn’t react. Looking back, I know she was trying to cheer me up, but at the time it seemed like ruthless torment. She gave up and went back downstairs after a few minutes—no doubt to read an adventure book. She’d gotten what looked like the full complement of Nancy Drews in a box set. My mother came up a few minutes later. “I made cinnamon rolls,” she said. “Do you want me to bring you one?” I didn’t fully understand the magnitude of the offer. I only knew that I was never allowed to eat in bed unless I was sick. “No thank you,” I said again, voice trembling. “Oh, honey,” she said, gathering me up into her arms. “We didn’t know you’d take it so hard.” I didn’t see how it could be taken any other way. Everyone I loved, and who I thought loved me, had been lying to me for my entire life. And if they could lie about this, who knew what else might be fake? My concept of a benevolent system ordering the world had been shaken completely. It was akin to the being told by the Pope that God wasn’t real—he was just waiting until you were old enough to let you know. I didn’t open my presents until almost a week later, when I was home alone. Becca and Jimmy were out cross-country skiing with dad to our aunt’s house about a half-mile away, and mom had taken Paul to the doctor because his stomach hurt. Well, that’s what you get for eating a whole chocolate orange in one go. The worst part was that I’d gotten almost everything that I put on my Christmas list. There had been no letter to Santa, so it was just a list. And, of course, there had been no answering letter, as there had always been before. No ‘dear Amy, you were a very good girl this year, except for that time with the marmalade, but Mrs. Claus has convinced me to let it slide.’ I would have been happier with coal. No one ever apologized to me, and so I never formally forgave anyone. The bitterness faded over time. That doesn’t mean I think Santa is a good idea, as I was more than happy to tell Jen when she brought it up. It was our last pre-baby Christmas, and we had been discussing how things would change. We sat on the couch drinking gingerbread-flavored herbal tea. Jen couldn’t have caffeine, so it seemed only fair for me to show solidarity. We’d decided to stay put for at least another year—the condo was big enough for three. But obviously Christmas next year would be different. “Of course, we’ll have to get stockings for Santa to fill,” she said. “We can hang them over the radiator, I guess, since we don’t have a chimney—” “No,” I said. “No Santa. We’re not traumatizing our kid like that.” She looked startled. “What?” “Santa is the worst idea ever. How are they supposed to trust us if they find out that we willfully deceived them for the first few years?” I said. She rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t be melodramatic.” “I’m not! Call Becca and ask, if you feel the need. It was a huge blow to me, when I was a kid.” My older sister would probably have laughed—cackled—at the memory. I’m willing to admit that Becca is no longer the worst, full stop, but she never really acquired much sensitivity where her siblings are concerned. “Or Jimmy or Paul,” I added, though I wasn’t actually sure how much they would remember. While I have no doubt that Jimmy could describe every Hess truck he ever received, and Paul can probably still recite the recipes for all three kinds of our mother’s holiday cookies, remembering my childhood emotional scars was less probable. “My parents will back me up, too,” I said. They didn’t. My parents stopped by that afternoon—my mother to coo over Jen’s belly and deliver cookies, my father to smile awkwardly and slip me a small bottle of good bourbon. It didn’t even have a ribbon on it, but it was the best present I’d gotten that year. Apart from the baby-to-be, of course, but this show of approval or solidarity or something was a close second. “You’ll need it, the first few months,” he confided as we stood together in the living room. “She’ll probably need it more, though, after nine months not drinking.” We’d already had the important discussion, about parenting and doing the best you can for your kids with what you know at the time. We’d had it years before, all hypothetical, with an encore performance when Jen and I had decided to have kids. One kid, at least. This was really all that was left for him to say. “So how do you feel about Santa?” I heard Jen ask my mom rather loudly in the kitchen. It was obviously a conversation she was starting for my benefit, so I followed the sound of her voice. “What do you mean?” my mother said, perplexed. “Do you think it’s a good idea?” Jen said, looking pointedly at me and raising an eyebrow. “Trick question,” my father interjected. “This is obviously an ongoing debate, and I for one do not want to get in the middle of it.” “Debate?” My mother looked back and forth between me and Jen. “What is there to debate?” “Whether or not we want to do the Santa thing,” I explained, “considering my experiences. And those of many other people, I’m sure!” “It wasn’t an issue for any of the other kids,” my father said, abandoning his promise of neutrality. “So I’d say you’ve got a twenty-five percent chance of upsetting your future son or daughter.” “That’s not a very large sample size,” Jen said. She was unable to quash her scientific impulses. (That’s what I get for marrying a biochemical engineer.) “But I’ll take what I can get.” She smiled at me, holding out the open Tupperware of my mother’s gingerbread cookies as a peace offering. I didn’t want to argue on Christmas, in front of my parents, so I took a cookie and let it slide. Until the following week. “I’m okay with you taking the kid to church. Isn’t that more important?” I said. Jen frowned at me over a plate of leftovers. “You’re not even Catholic. Saints aren’t important to Lutherans, are they?” “It’s not the Saint Nicholas thing. Santa is almost a secular tradition by this point. All her friends at school will have that, and if she doesn’t, it won’t be fair.” We’d agreed not to ask about the sex of the fetus, but Jen was convinced that it was a girl. “If we do Santa, we’re also doing Krampus,” I insisted. Jen looked at me like I was out of my mind. “If they’re going to be upset that something good in the world doesn’t exist, that should at least be balanced by relief that something bad also doesn’t exist.” “No Krampus,” she said with an air of finality that brooked no argument, and crossed her arms over her belly. It is a truth universally acknowledged among the non-pregnant halves of expecting couples that you don’t argue with the baby bump. So I didn’t. Which means that now, as Kara’s getting old enough to ask logistical questions about reindeer flight, the only option left to me is evasion. “Is Santa real?” she says, beatific six-year-old face terrifyingly earnest. “The spirit of giving is real,” I say. We’re at Macy’s, waiting to get her holiday portrait done like we do every year. She’s in a red dress and cardigan and looks like something out of a Norman Rockwell illustration. I don’t want to lie, but I don’t want to break her heart. This is made difficult by the fact that Kara has Jen’s inquisitive nature and sharp mind. She might not recognize the handwriting on Santa’s letters just yet, but she knows that something is up. “I don’t think that’s an answer,” she says after a long moment of consideration. “You’re right,” I say. Kara frowns, forehead wrinkling, and considers this in silence. I’m not looking forward to next year. I can’t even make cinnamon rolls to soften the blow. |
|
|
|
|
✕