Sweet, Dark and Crazy

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Christmas Memory #2

As I mentioned yesterday, as a kid, like most kids, I was a huge fan of Santa Claus. I believed. I made a list. I checked it. He checked it twice. I wasn’t naughty, well… most of the time I was nice. Okay, sometimes I was really naughty but I always left good cookies with cold milk in hopes that the big guy would overlook the naughty occasions. Come Christmas morning, everything I wanted was right there. It was a good system. I didn’t see any need to rock the boat.

My cousins, the twins, thought differently. They lived across the street and had looked under the crawl space of their house and found several gifts. They were convinced that if I did the same thing at my house, I’d hit pay dirt as well.

I was always up for a little adventure, so we waited until the coast was clear and headed down under. There wasn’t much there and just as we were about to leave, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her. It was Candi!

It was exactly the doll I wanted. You could color her hair and everything! That was all we found but I was so excited! In fact, I was so excited that my mother asked the reason for my very good mood. I told her I’d tell her if she could keep it a secret. She said she could, so I told her.

She lied.

That evening at dinner, my dad asked what I had done that day and I told him not much. Then he said that he’d heard that I’d found something. I looked at my mom, my eyes tinged with betrayal. She just shrugged.

Dad: “I guess this means you don’t believe in Santa Claus anymore.”

“No!” I exclaimed. Sure I was in the third or fourth grade but the fact remained that Santa delivered the goods. I asked and he made sure that I received. And, remember, I had only found one gift. I was still expecting Santa to deliver the rest.

Dad continued, “So how do you think you will get any gifts now?”

“No! No!” I said as I began to cry. “I BELIEVE!”

“Well, I don’t know what will happen this year then, since you don’t believe in Santa anymore.”

At this point tears were streaming down my little round face as I imagined a tree devoid of any gifts. It would be the Saddest Christmas Ever! All I could say through my sobs was, “I Believe. I BELIEVE!! Please!!!”

“I Believe. I BELIEVE!! Please!!!” over and over again.

I barely heard my dad when he said he was returning Candi to the store. I didn’t care. I wanted Santa! I wanted Christmas!

Well, I got Christmas. But I didn’t get Santa. And, I didn’t get Candi.

In retrospect, I can’t believe that my parents traumatized their only child like that. That shit was wrong.

Labels: Christmas, Family, Memories

posted by SDC @ 2:17 PM

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