The Golden Age of Christmas is, of course, from ages two to seven or eight, when even the most optimistic kiddoes realize Santa Claus is a fraud perpetrated on them by parents previously admired for their honesty. (None of this applies to Siobhan’s employee Laura Benedetti, a Christmas addict who will punch you in the nose if you say anything untoward about Santa. Her yard has more decorations than the mall and the reindeer are real). Though we all feel smugly sophisticated for finally solving this troublesome riddle, we are also very disappointed to suspend our belief in a magic and mysterious being who brings joy to the world. This is the first in a series of potential discoveries of this nature (see: tooth fairy, Easter Bunny and various religious entities) and gives rise to the Almighty Question: Is it better to believe in Magic than to pry open the lid of the oft-bitter Reality can? Most of our readers will roll their eyes and opt for the latter because they are somewhat acquainted with college and were once fans of Joe Friday. But which children are happier, those who sleep with visions of sugarplums and Santa Claus or the ones who have discovered The Truth?
Let It Snow
If Santa Claus is a critical part of Christmas, so is snow. You need snow for atmosphere, for fulfilling psychological fantasies of the Christmas Experience and, most of all, for the sleighs to run on time. To quote the old song, “If it doesn’t snow on Christmas, how is Santa goin’ to use his sleigh?” Nobody enjoys the sight of The Jolly Old Elf pulling up in a maroon Hummer.
Growing up in New England, Christmas just didn’t feel right without snow. We would rather walk to Midnight Mass in a blizzard than have the streets bare. How could you smack Sally Ann with a snowball without ammunition? Or build a snow fort? Or get a bonus day off from school in the face of a big storm? There is no feeling quite the equal of the glee inherent in hearing the nice man on the radio telling you there is no school today.
Icicles were another matter. When you got snow, you inevitably got icicles, giant ice daggers hanging from the eaves which could penetrate your skull in a heartbeat if they happened to fall. They were up there, staring down at you maliciously while you tried to shovel the walk, dripping their little reminders on your head. I used to have nightmares about the things gathering together to plot their attack. I brought this concern to the attention of my dependable Uncle Arthur, who had an answer for every dilemma. Shortly after being advised of the magnitude of the problem, he returned with a very impressive, rock-hard football helmet and put it on my head. “Lightning,” he said, “cannot get through this helmet, let alone a lousy icicle.” I felt much better then because other than a few unfortunate mistakes involving women, Uncle Arthur was always right.
Be It Ever So Humble….
When we think of home, we think of the priceless times there….the Thanksgivings, the Christmases, the New Years Day little Billy stuck a hairpin in a wall socket and got enlightenment. We might forget a lot of things over the years, but we remember the festive days of mid-December to January 1st in the place of our youth…our parents, grandparents, sisters, and brothers celebrating in harmony, opening presents wonderful and silly, drinking eggnog, looking up at the perfectly decorated tree, wishing to box up the high feelings and stash them in a secret place so they could never get away.
When I was born, my Mother had to remain in the hospital for several days for repairs, thus I was placed in the temporary custody of my maternal grandmother, Celia Gosselin. I think this may have established a unique bond because Nan, as we called her, always doted on me and allowed certain indiscretions she would not tolerate from anyone else. I was not a troubled youth but there were times when I was delivered home in a police car to furious parents, but Nan never turned a hair. My grandmother, though small in stature, was not a pussycat. She had a sharp tongue, a quick-strike attitude and a scary demeanor. People were afraid of her, especially kids. “Do that again and I’ll cut your ears off!” she would promise and they sharply retreated just in case it might be true. To then, I had only seen her cry once---at the death of my grandfather. Ornery or not, with me she was St. Celia of the Roses.
After a relatively undistinguished college career as a writer/troublemaker and a few years as an often-arrested magazine editor, none of which troubled Nan one whit, I finally put a few dollars together at age 28. My grandmother was getting on in years by then, a little quieter but just as feisty in emergencies. I tried to get home at Christmas as often as I could and this year I decided it was time to get her something special.
Celia was a big television watcher, and her taste in programs knew no bounds. She watched the soap operas of course, but for some reason had an eerie interest in the bowling shows. She knew all the bowlers, their relative talents, idiosyncracies, personalities and which ones had unacceptable wives. She liked Mitch Miller’s singalongs but thought Lawrence Welk hung the moon. All of these offerings at the time were only available in black-and-white unless you were rich as Croesus and and could somehow manage to buy a color TV, which was hugely extravagant in our house. I decided to get a big one for Nan.
Everybody was in on the game. A gigantic box was placed under the tree from Bill to someone other than Celia and the presents were all doled out, leaving the big one for last. Nan didn’t think for a moment it might be hers and she teased the faux recipient about the size of whatever was in there. When the time was right and all the gifts but one had been opened, I went over to the box and turned to tell everyone the present had been mislabeled and it was actually for my Grandmother. She didn’t quite get it at first and had to be encouraged to open the thing. It was a slow and laborious process and she was very confused. Finally, the veil fell and she saw her enormous new color TV, gasped and almost fell backwards onto the floor. Then, for the second time since I’d known her, Celia Gosselin began to weep.
You Gotta Believe
The notion of a Santa Claus is just fine in a neighborhood of small children, almost all of them under six. When you get to school, however, there are older and wiser children available to pop your balloons. Fairly soon you realize there is more to girls than you ever realized, that not everyone likes Ted Williams and that Santa Claus might be a concoction adults use to make their kids behave. Eddie Mellucci, a second-grade bully, told a small circle of us there was no Santa Claus. Nobody liked Eddie but when he started rolling out facts and figures it gave everyone pause.
“It’s crazy to think there’s a Santa,” Mellucci pronounced. “Think of all the millions of kids in the world and how much time he has to visit everybody. The logistics are impossible!” We didn’t know what logistics were but we got his drift. My best friend, Jackie Mercier, remained defiant. “Yeah, but Santa Clause is MAGIC,” he argued. Eddie shrugged his shoulders, walked off and sneered, “First-graders are idiots.”
We had a lot of visitors on Christmas Eve so my front-hall bedroom was sacrificed to prevent overcrowding and I had to sleep in my sister Alice’s room. I had asked my Mother a few questions about the difficulty of Santa’s task but had not yet discussed the issue with Alice, a true believer at four-years-old. “You’d better go to sleep,” she firmly told me, “Or Santa won’t come. Or maybe you just won’t get anything. I’m not exactly sure how it works.”
“I’m not worried,” said Bill, the tough guy. “I don’t think there is any Santa Claus.” At that precise moment, there was a very loud noise which seemed to come from the roof. Alice pulled the covers over her head and I jumped in bed, just in case. I mean what does Eddie Mellucci know, anyway? Before long, my sister and I were sound asleep.
Next morning, at some absurd hour, we peeked out into the living room. It was obvious Santa had been there. The cookies were gone, for one thing, and the milk glass was half-empty. Someone seemed to have gotten a little bike, but we weren’t allowed to explore in depth until our parents got up. We had learned over the years that sometimes this takes awhile when you drink a lot of champagne.
The tradition at our house was that everyone would open their Christmas stocking to start the ball rolling. Alice was exultant with her little stash, but my stocking looked a bit odd from a distance. When I approached and saw what was at the very top, my knees got shaky and my little mind reeled. It was a very large chunk of shiny bituminous coal, the kind children usually get when they don’t believe in Santa Claus. I think it was just a warning because underneath were the usual apples, oranges, candy bars and small toys. Alice looked at me sternly and said, “I think this is your last chance, Billy. Next year, you might not get nuthin’.”
I resolved then and there to mend my ways. What did Eddie Mellucci know, kids were dopes. I jumped back on the Santa train for the next few months, ignoring the scoffers. They didn’t know what I knew. Then one day, I was hanging out with Jackie Fournier at Sid Humphrey’s coal yard next to his house. Sid’s place was off-limits via parental proclamation but you can’t expect a six-year-old to ignore busy coal chutes scooping up product and delivering it up into the trucks. After a few minutes of savoring the atmosphere, I looked around at the various coal bins, each loaded with a different type of coal. I tried to pronounce the word “anthracite,” then moved down the line to the others. Suddenly, there it was---the same shiny type of coal Santa had placed in the top of my stocking. It was a minute of brief confusion, perhaps a moment of Truth. Hey, I thought, you don’t suppose….
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
Hope you don’t get any coal….
