12.24.2001
Unlike most families, mine insisted on informing me as soon as possible that there was, in fact, no Santa Claus. While all the other kids my age were cleaning up their behavior in the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas in order to appease that guy up north, I was in the same camp as the school's only Jew, not really caring because we knew what none of the rest of them did, that we would get presents regardless of how we acted. By the time I was eleven though, I'd had enough of realism and decided that it was time to believe in something. Like most other kids I knew that Jesus had something peripheral to do with Christmas, but I wanted to be in on the action. I wanted Santa.
At eleven years old I was in the fifth grade and it was far from hip to profess a belief in a big jolly fat guy but everyone deep down still did and I wanted a part of it too. The only roadblock in forming my belief was the need for proof that Santa actually did exist when my mother, father, and older sister all said he didn't. I needed something hard, bulletproof, something that could stand up in a court of law if necessary. I needed to meet this Santa guy.
The most logical place to start seemed like the mall. The town mall, the closest thing my suburban neighborhood had to a square, never wasted anytime setting up their Christmas decorations. One year, my mother liked to tell me, when I was too young to remember, the maintenance workers charged with bringing yuletide cheer to the shopping mecca even jumped the gun and were found stringing up branches of holly and sprinkling fake snow on the linoleum floors the day after Halloween rather than Thanksgiving. My mother, always being one for the festivities that accompanied the holidays, actually said that she approved and a small part in her wished that they would do it again though there was little chance considering that the head of maintenance, a shell shocked Vietnam veteran, was fired for his faulty memory only to return two months later with a gun and belt full of smoke grenades. It was before the days of CNN and received only local coverage but it did teach the valuable lesson of looking at the calendar before doing anything.
Beside the bank of escalators in the main foyer of the mall, sat a giant Christmas tree adorned with ornaments provided by the local branch of Macy's hoping to cash in on it's New York sister's holiday hipness, and a king like throne for the man himself, Santa Claus. It was a big chair, three feet off the ground with red and green plush pillows filling the space on the sides that even the fat man's girth could not assume. Santa even looked like a child in it, his black booted feet left swinging above the floor. In front of the chair was a camera attended to by several bored teens looking to make some extra money over the holidays but who didn't know that they would need to be dressed as elves and seemed perpetually embarrassed by it. Parents with their screaming toddlers and babies in strollers formed a neat line behind the camera to wait for their chance to have their kids photographed with Saint Nick so it could be included in their Christmas cards to whomever. I was the odd man out in the line, looking out of place without a smiling mother or even a stroller of my own to push.
When my turn finally arrived, one of the pimply elves sneered at me as though I were making fun of him and asked if I was serious. "Very," I told him. Because of my size, I wasn't hoisted up onto Santa's lap by his helpers but had to crawl up on my own and situate myself in such a way that I didn't actually hurt the big man.
From in line, the man on the chair really did look like the jolly old elf, but up close it was obvious that he was probably an off duty security guard with nothing better to do than listen to kid's wish lists. One thing was certain though, he wasn't padded to look big, he really was. Still, I had my quest, and I was not going to be dissuaded. I had a message and I hoped that he was the man to pass it on for me.
"So, kid," the mall Santa asked. "What do you want for Christmas?"
"Look," I said. "I know you're not the real Santa."
"Ho ho ho," he laughed. "Of course I'm Santa!"
"It's not like I don't appreciate what you're doing here," I said. "The way I figure it, he can't be in all the malls, so he asks guys locally to fill in for him right?"
Sensing where I was going, he narrowed his eyes and whispered to me, "Okay okay kid, you're right. I'm not the real Santa. So now that you know that, what do you need?"
I smiled at my own reasoning abilities, what a clever kid I was. "I need to know that there's really a Santa out there. I was hoping that you could put the word in with, you know," I said pausing because I knew the ridiculousness of my words. "The real Santa. I need you to ask him to leave something that proves he exists."
"That's what you want," the off duty guard asked. "You want proof?"
"Yeah," I confirmed. "Just something small. Could you ask him for me?"
He stared at me for a second and for a minute I felt as though he could smell the desperation I had to believe but finally he spoke. "Sure kid, I'll ask him. I'll ask him. But you've got to do something for me."
I watched him, unsure at first, but then figured that if he was doing me a favor, I could do one in return. "What do you need," I asked.
"Okay, you figured me out, but I need you to not tell anyone what you know, about me and the local Santa's. If word got out, it'd be bad, you know?"
I smiled, stuck out my paw, and the two of us shook hands. We had a bargain. I jumped down off his lap, fetched my picture from another elf that looked like the head cheerleader to the local high school then ran off to find my mom in the J.C. Penny's.
The next two weeks were torture. Inside I hoped that Saint Nick would pay a special pre-Christmas visit to my house to explain to my family just how misguided they were and to prove me right but he didn't come and for the first time, like all the other kids, I found myself throwing fewer snowballs at girls and eating all the food my mother put on my plate. I was asking for a big favor from the big man and felt as though I needed to do something in return. When Christmas Eve came, I even set out milk and cookies regardless of the ridicule lavished on me by my older sister. If he was going to leave proof, I wanted to be sure that at least he was well fed. In my room, on the top bunk of my bunk bed, I tried to stay awake as long as possible in an effort to hear the clatter of hooves or the bump of the sleigh on my father's newly re-shingled roof but it proved for naught. The sound of the falling snow outside and the darkness eventually took its toll and I fell asleep.
When I awoke in the morning it was to the smell of fresh coffee brewing in the kitchen. The adrenaline pumped into my system like never before and, in my excitement, I neglected to remember that I was on the top bunk and fell to the floor below. Though I hurt my ankle, I was undeterred and limped into the living room with as much speed as I could muster. My mom was already on the couch, sipping coffee from her mug while my dad pulled a selection of Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole records from his collection to put on the player. My dad saw me enter, walking tenderly on one foot, and came over to give me a big Christmas morning hug.
"Hey," he said. "We heard a bump in your room and wondered what it was. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine," I said. "Did he come?"
"Did who come, dear," my mother asked with surprise.
"Santa," I said. "Did he come?"
My dad laughed a big hearty laugh and mussed my hair before returning to the record player while my mom frowned. "Honey," she said. "We told you, there isn't a Santa. He's just a myth adopted by the card companies to sell more cards."
You can take the girl away from the hippies, but you couldn't take the hippy out of the girl.
When my sister awoke and emerged from her room, my mother seated us on the couch while my father passed out a present one at a time for us to open. I got the usual, a G.I. Joe action figure, a Voltron toy, and a stocking full of candy. My sister got the girl equivalent, though she was pleased to see that my mother was giving up on her makeup embargo by allowing her to have some of her own. My dad bought my mother a VCR, though it was really a gift for all of us, to tape Jane Fonda's workouts and which would later tape the Challenger explosion news coverage. When all the presents were passed out, I felt my heart sink in my chest and realized that I was going to have to face the fact that there might actually have never been a Santa Claus when my sister pointed and asked my dad, "What's that?"
"Looks like I forgot one," he said, giving my mother a strange look.
"Who's it for," she asked in return.
My dad had to go on his belly and crawl half way under our huge tree decorated by strings of popcorn, glass bulbs, and hand made ceramic ornaments to reach it. When he pulled it out, he flipped open the card and said, "It's for Robert." He passed the shiny red package with green ribbon over to my mother who examined the card for herself before passing again on to me.
I took the mystery present that was roughly the size of a softball but square and which weighed next to nothing and looked at the message. It read, "Special Delivery" on the outside and inside were the words, "For Robert," on the inside in an ornamental longhand lost to my generation. The ribbon was tied in a neat bow on top and I pulled the strings, undoing it then gently unwrapped the metallic red paper. It was a brown cardboard box with a lid that I opened to find another note on top. I pulled it out and read it quietly noticing that it was in the same handwriting at as the card.
"What does it say," my sister asked, anxious that I had one more gift than she did.
I looked at my mother then to my father then read, "Yeah kid, there is a Santa Claus."
"Well, what's in the box," my dad asked.
I looked in the box, and at first didn't see anything but when I shifted it, the contents became apparent. The box contained toenail and white beard clippings. I moved them around with my finger and realized that the note was right. There was a Santa and he had a hell of a sense of humor.