Santa Claus Still Rides High Over This Household
It may have been the light, or perhaps the noise. I don’t quite remember now what it was that jolted me from my sleep. This was a while ago, on Christmas Eve.
I was 6 years old, or maybe it was 5.
I sat up in my bed and stuck my head under the curtains to get a good look outside. My sister, asleep in the bed next to mine, missed out. But I saw. I was very cleareyed. It was as if I were taking notes. If only I could write . . . .
Santa Claus was riding across the sky, sitting in his sleigh. There was noise. It sounded like bells. The sky was awash in a bright light. I believed. But, then again, I never had a doubt.
In the morning, I told my mother about what I had seen. She was very interested, it seemed to me. I explained it all, very matter-of-fact. My mother pressed me for details. I gladly told her what I knew.
All of this happened. To this day, I will swear that it is true.
OK, it was late. I had been asleep. It was Christmas Eve, when children might not have both feet on the ground. Yet I will always believe. I saw with my own eyes.
Knowing that Santa Claus was out and about, in the neighborhood, hurrying along his way, made me feel warm inside. This I recall as if it were today. It made me feel loved. I had a strong feeling that I was on Santa’s list. I knew that I had been good.
My own 5-year-old is waiting for Santa this Christmas Eve. Her sister, alas, is too young to know exactly what that means. Still, I am sure that she feels something too--which is certainly good enough.
Now everyone in our house believes in the magic of Santa Claus.
Oh, I’m not going to say that we grown-ups have been good about Santa all the time. We use this fellow as we see fit. He is very convenient around this time of year.
“What if Santa Claus hears?” I say to my daughter. Or, more to the point, “I hope I don’t have to tell Santa about what you just did.”
Yes, I admit that I have uttered these shameless threats. But, oh, how they work! The whining suddenly stops. The apologies start, the I-promise-I-won’t-ever-do-it-agains.
Santa Claus has a lot of clout.
We know of a mother who has told her young daughter that Santa Claus is a flat-out fraud. This frightens me quite a bit. I don’t want her child playing with my own, in case she lets this awful “truth” slip out. It would surely land with a thud in our house.
My daughter would argue. She would say, “uh- uhh ,” in her indignant best. She would point out the Santa on whose lap she has sat to compose an impromptu list.
And she might mention the letters dictated to her dad, who posts them to the North Pole straight away. This year, she is writing her missive in her own hand.
Santa Claus is real, she’d say, because somehow he always brings her what she wants.
The naysayers, of course, always come out to crow around this time of year. A university lecturer on ethics recently got some press when she wrote that Santa, as a concept, should go the way of cigarette advertising on TV.
Believing in Santa is outdated, she says, and bad for you too.
“Parents shouldn’t lie to their children in the first place,” Judith Boss, from the University of Rhode Island, says. “Children depend on their parents for a realistic view of the world. This is taking advantage of their gullibility.”
And, yes, Virginia, it can get worse.
Boss seems to think that her view is gaining ground. She cites studies that say about 85% of American 4-year-olds believe in St. Nick. In other words, 15% do not!
The thought of thousands of children with this sort of “realistic view of the world” on Christmas Eve is enough to bring me to tears.
So I am here to spread the truth, to counteract these vicious lies. I saw Santa Claus doing what he does like nobody else: flying through the sky and at the very least, bringing cheer to one child spying from the ground.
You must take me at my word. It is the most important asset that I’ve got. Here at the newspaper, they might fire me if I wrote something that was not true.
Merry Christmas. May Santa Claus show up at your home too.