There Really Is A Santa Claus

I was about seven, maybe, when I realized that Mom’s writing and Santa’s were suspiciously similar, except that Santa always WROTE IN ALL CAPS.  It was disappointing, but I was pretty sure before I broached the subject, so I was ready to hear it. Mom explained to me then that there really is a Santa Claus, but I didn’t understand her for almost ten years. She said that Santa Claus was alive in all of us, as we give toys away to kids who don’t have them, and put our change in the red buckets in front of the grocery store, or donating our old clothes to Goodwill, or paying the toll for the car behind you. We are all Santa Claus. I understood the concept, but it was still a disappointment.

My junior year in high school, I was Secretary/Treasurer of the Junior Civitian club. We got a list from DFACS and went to visit the families to find out what they needed. My French teacher and I visited an old couple that lived behind a flea market type of establishment. The town eyesore, to be exact. We pulled up to a little tin shack and stepped through the threshold on to dirt packed floors. They each had an armchair, and there was an ancient little tv on a cart. I would have been hard pressed to say that the tv was older than the space heater.

It was the week after Thanksgiving, and on the cart next to the tv sat a little white craftpaper tree with little wooden easter egg ornaments, in pretty pastels, hanging in the branches. I sat on a wooden stool with my notebook in my lap, my mind reeling. We chatted with the lady for awhile, and got down to brass tacks. What did they need most?

Blankets. Food. Clothes. Medicine. More Blankets. It was heartbreaking, and she was so grateful, so graceful, so sweet and gentle for having such a hard life. She apologized to us; she didn’t have any proper decorations, just this Easter tree, and she didn’t guess the Good Lord would hold it against her, and hoped that we wouldn’t either.

I refused to eat dinner that night. I laid on my bed and cried and felt sick. I got so worked up that when my Mom insisted on knowing what was going on, I could only wail “She only has an Easter tree. She has a fucking dirt packed floor and she’s putting up an Easter tree.”

We were doing some Christmas shopping, some time later, and we saw this beautiful, small, simple Nativity scene. Not a word passed between us as we put it in the cart and marched onward.

I went back to that little tin shack a few days before Christmas, with my French teacher, her car loaded to the hilt with food and clothes and blankets, and a gift bagged Nativity scene. The old man couldn’t get up or speak much, but the lady ranted and raved and giggled and clapped her hands, and a tear or two slid down her cheek, and my teacher and I were holding back as best we could.

Then we sat down in the living room and put the bag in her lap. She reached in, pulled it out, and burst into tears. Which pretty much destroyed any effort my teacher and I could still muster in holding our own tears back. So the three of us sat there and cried, and laughed, and cried, and we exchanged hugs and good wishes and gratitude.

I’ve not done any formal volunteer work since those days- it’s become more my style to help out where I can on my own. When I’ve had that chance, I’ve taken it. I’ve also been on the receiving end of a few Christmas miracles.

So, there is a Santa Claus.  So long as we still take care of each other.

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