Sleigh bells always do it to me. I can resist the multi-colored sparkle of the lights adorning a freshly cut pine, and the pungent fragrance of the tree filling up my home. I can even resist the anachronistic beauty of holly berries, red against the green of their branches in the middle of the white-grey deadness of winter. But I simply cannot ignore the tinkling, jingling call of the bells. When I hear them, I begin to believe that I am a child again.
But I can't fool myself. As special as the Christmas season is to me, I know that it is not the same as when I was a boy. I know this each time I Iook into the eyes of my daughter, wide and amazed each winter as the cold chill of the weather melts into the warmth of a living room decorated with bright shining ornaments and bouncing candle flames. The anxious joy in her voice as she speaks of the doll or the bike she might receive, her finger nervously twirling her hair as we wait to meet Santa Claus at a shopping center, her wide-eyed excitement on Christmas morning as she tears into her presents, keeps reminding me of a time that was long ago, that can never truly exist again.
But once, in the candy cane land of Christmases gone by, I must have felt that same sparkle. And I know that I felt that same rapture at the thought of Christmas morning, that same anticipation, that same feeling that something wonderful and magical was happening in my house every year at this time. And, by the time I was six, the anticipation was strong enough that it seemed to take forever for Christmas Eve to arrive.
And it was when I was six, during the dancing, snow-filled weeks before the magical evening arrived, that Billy Cagney decided that it was necessary to inform me of a fact that he had recently learned: that Santa Claus did not exist.
It happened so suddenly that I did not even know it was coming. We were talking about the gifts we expected to open, and I started to ramble about Christmas Eve and how neat it all seemed, how I always watched the early news on that night because they always gave updates on where Santa's sleigh had been sighted, how my father always helped me to put out cookies and milk for Santa before I got to bed, how I sometimes thought I heard jingling bells as I lay in bed trying in vain to get to sleep. Then Billy started to laugh. He had a strange, demonic laugh that always made me feel that he felt superior to me, and today it made me especially ill at ease.
"You don't really still believe in all that junk," he said with unconcealed disgust.
"What junk?" I answered.
"All that Santa Claus stuff. Grownups just made all that crud up. He isn't real."
I stared straight into his eyes; I couldn't understand the words he was saying. All I could think of was that he must be telling me some kind of joke, or perhaps just trying to get a rise out of me.
"Billy, you'd better stop that," I said. "He'll hear it, and then you won't get any presents."
Billy laughed again. "You don't get it, do you? It's a joke. The whole thing. Santa Claus, elves, reindeer, every bit of it."
He was serious. And his tone made me certain that he thought I was the world's stupidest person for having been taken in. I didn't know how to react. I felt confused, frightened, upset, bewildered. Then I felt angry.
"Why are you saying this?" I yelled at him. "Shut up!"
"You little baby," he taunted me. "That's all you are, a baby!"
I hit him square in the face with my right fist. I had never hit anyone before, and I think that I was as surprised as he was. He swung at me, knocking me down into the snow, and we went at it, pummeling each other for at least ten minutes. In actuality, we did little damage; it's difficult to hurt someone when you're six years old and wearing thick winter mittens. But we managed to mess each other's egos up pretty badly.
Finally I broke free and ran from him toward my house. He picked himself up and hollered after me: "Baby, baby, still believe in Santa Claus. Baby!"
The words burned into me with my tears as I stumbled home. Of course it was a lie, but why was Billy being so mean? Why was he saying those things? I staggered up the steps and through the front door into the hallway, still cloudy from crying.
My mother's soft voice enveloped me. "What's wrong, Darling? Why are you crying?"
I tried to tell her everything, but it all seemed so absurd that I couldn't get it out. I managed to stammer something about getting into a fight with Billy Cagney before I ran into my room.
At dinner that night, I was unusually quiet. I normally monopolized the conversation. "Daddy, do you know what I did today?" "Mommy took us to the movies!" "Daddy, I made a Christmas decoration in school!"
Or I'd ask about my prospects for Christmas morning: Do you think that Santa knows I need a toy truck? Will he bring me a go-cart? Do you think that he got my letter?
And then my parents would turn to me and say to me, Of course he knows, but you have to be a good boy. Santa doesn't deliver presents to bad little boys who keep asking for things for themselves. And, of course, I'd try to be philanthropic, but it was always difficult: greed comes naturally when you're six.
But that night I could not bring myself to say a word. I just sat there, fidgeting and fiddling with my food until it was cold. My father tried to talk to me a few times, but I just shrugged and played with my food, building castles in my mashed potatos. I was in the middle of fashioning a large cave for the Abominable Snow Monster of the North when I realized that my father was talking to me.
"--not the end of the world, you know; everyone fights once in a while."
I shrugged. "I guess so," I replied, not even glancing away from the cave of the Abominable.
"Come on, Bobby; this isn't like you. What was the fight about?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't. I just kept on digging the cave, making sure that there would be an escape tunnel in case Santa ever got trapped inside.
"Well," he said after a moment, "whatever it was, I'm sure that you and Billy will make up; after all, you're best friends."
"No!" I shrieked. "No! I hate Billy Cagney! I never want to talk to him again!"
I ran from the table, crying, and collapsed in convulsions onto my bed. Suddenly my father was sitting next to me, his arms holding me, his voice soothing.
"I'm sorry, Bobby. I didn't know it was that bad. It's OK now."
I mumbled through my sobbing. "Why does he say things like that?"
"What?" my father responded. "What did he say?"
I looked at him, afraid of even saying the words. Finally I stammered out, "He said that Santa isn't real."
I don't know what I expected. Perhaps I didn't expect anything. But I know what I didn't expect, and that was what my father said.
"He isn't."
"What?"
"He isn't real," my father said in a serious tone. Then, with a smile, "He's magic."
I probably looked confused, so my father went on. "Santa Claus isn't real the way you and I are real," he said. " I mean, you and I can't make reindeer fly, can we? So Santa's magic. And not everybody believes in magic, you know. There are always some folks who like to look for tricks, hidden wires and things. Billy Cagney is probably one of them. He doesn't believe in magic, so he doesn't believe in Santa Claus."
I had stopped crying. I looked up at him, and a new question suddenly materialized in my mind. "But I don't get it. If Billy doesn't believe in Santa Claus, then how does he get presents?"
"That's easy. Billy isn't magic, you know. So Santa Claus does believe in him."
I smiled, and my father held me, and everything was all right.
There were, however, still nine days until Christmas. And, boys being boys, I did indeed find myself playing with Billy Cagney again. We were building a snow fort, an impregnable fortress to ward off attacks from all sorts of enemies, from snow monsters to alien creatures to the little girl who lived down the street. (We feared her most of all, and we were ready to launch an all-out attack, with slush balls--our most vicious weapon-- if she ventured into our territory. Billy later married her.) Neither one of us had mentioned the fight about Santa, although I had been thinking about it.
It was nearly dusk, and the fort was almost complete--we were stocking it with snowballs and slush balls--when the inevitable happened. Someone turned the Christmas lights on in our house. That wouldn't have been so bad except that the lights included a rooftop replica of Santa and three of his reindeer (I never could figure out why we only had three of them). As soon as we noticed that they had blazed into life, the whole controversy began afresh.
"Stupid decorations," he mumbled.
I tried to head him off at the pass. "Come on, Billy. I don't want to talk about this again."
He glowered. At this distance in time, it seems hard for me to believe that a six year old can truly glower, but that is the only way I know to describe what he did. His eyes lowered in an evil sort of way, a sneer of pure despicable delight crept onto his face, and he glowered.
"You really are a baby, Bobby. I can't believe you. I told you before but you still don't get it, do you?"
"Billy," I said, "my dad says that there is a Santa, and that's that."
It was a six-year-old argument, but you're allowed to make them when you're six. It didn't phase Billy, though.
" 'My daddy says,' " he responded in a twisted and slightly perverted imitation of me. "Your daddy says just what he wants you to think!"
But I had the crusher that would end the argument before it even had gotten started. I had been thinking a lot about this, as needless to say it had been hard to get off my mind, and I had come up with the ultimate rebuttal. OK, so nobody ever saw Santa Claus come down a chimney. OK, so it was possible that some of those Santas in the stores were just helpers, just pretend Santas. So what? I could concede all of those points and still win.
I cut Billy off with my killer argument.
"Come on, Billy--if there is no such person as Santa Claus, where do the presents come from?"
I think that I expected to be able to knock him over with a feather while he contemplated that one. I expected to blow him away. I expected that he would turn it over in his mind, see the positively overwhelming logic in it, and fall to his knees begging my forgiveness.
He fell down, all right. Laughing! I was only six, but I had never seen anyone laugh so hard. It took him several minutes before he was able to explain his reaction.
"God," he snorted between guffaws, "you must be the stupidest kid on Earth. Your parents bring the presents."
Now I was the one who could be knocked over with a feather.
"My parents?"
"Of course, you moron. Isn't it obvious? Have they ever let you stay up to see Santa?"
"Of course not--he won't come if he sees that we're awake."
"That's just junk they tell you to get you to bed early. Really, they bought all the stuff and put it out for you after you're asleep."
I turned it over in my mind. After a few minutes, that Santa Claus on the rooftop caught my attention again. But somehow I didn't feel happy to see it, not the way I had felt when my father had put it up. Suddenly it looked--I didn't know how. But it looked not right. It looked too plastic.
"Bobby?"
It had been several minutes since I had spoken. He had been talking, I realized, but I hadn't heard him, and all I could see through rapidly forming tears was that plastic Santa. Without a word, I got up and walked glumly into the house.
I didn't say a word to my parents about my second conversation with Billy Cagney. I wanted to believe in Santa, but I wasn't sure anymore. The only argument that I had felt was without rebuttal had been rebutted succinctly and completely. Billy was right. It was obvious.
I felt like such a fool.
But as the days went by between that evening and Christmas Eve, I thought about it more and more. Everywhere there were people who talked about Santa Claus. Television commercials featured him. Kids wondered about what he'd bring them. You could visit with him (or his helper?) in shopping centers.
How could it all be a fake?
As Christmas Eve approached, I made up my mind. It was silly to hang around and sulk through what used to be my favorite day of the year. And, truly, that's all I had been doing since my second "discussion" with Billy Cagney. I had been despondent for a week, and Christmas was just around the corner.
"Dear," my mother said, "if you don't stop acting all gloomy and grumpy, Santa just might bring you a lump of coal in your stocking."
I made a mental note that if Santa really was real, I would have to ask him about that one. My mother had been telling me that for my entire life, but I don't think that I really believed it. How could Santa really do a thing like that?
I looked at my mother, making an effort not to sulk, but my face was glued to my shoes.
"What's the matter, Bobby?"
"Nothing, Mom."
Who was I kidding? But I had finally arrived at the answer to my dilemma. I was going to find out for certain, with my own two eyes.
I was going to stay up and wait for Santa Claus.
Now, this is tantamount to mass murder on the list of sins that a six-year-old can commit around Christmas time. No one, I had been told since I had been able to understand words, could see Santa on Christmas Eve; he was simply too busy to be bothered with children. If he saw us awake, we were told, he wouldn't leave us any presents.
None.
But the words of Billy Cagney (worse yet, the sneer of Billy Cagney) kept creeping back into my brain. And I knew that I would do it.
On Christmas Eve I excused myself from the table after eating exactly three bites of fried fish and two french fries. The rest I had arranged neatly on my plate in a precise map of the most amazing snow fortress ever seen either on Earth or on any other planet.
I went into my bedroom and planned out my evening. We had our Christmas tree--a Scotch pine about thirty feet tall and covered with so many lights, ornaments and strands of tinsel that you couldn't even see any tree--in the living room, and my bedroom happened to be the closest one to the hallway just outside the living room. So if I could time it properly, I shouldn't have much trouble sneaking into the room near the tree. And I had even figured out the best place to hide. We had a weird couch that bent around a corner of the room, and there was just enough room back there for me and a blanket--I had used the very spot playing hide-and-seek with my father.
Now, when you are six, the days before Christmas Eve, snowy cold December days, drift on endlessly. But Christmas Eve itself, the last night, was an eternity. There is no time longer to a six-year-old than the time between bedtime on Christmas Eve and morning on Christmas Day. In fact, no self-respecting six-year-old in the history of the world has ever waited until it was actually morning to attempt to get his parents out of bed. That is, not until what the parents consider morning. And just try arguing with sleeping fathers that four o'clock in the morning has "morning" in it, so it counts. It doesn't work. Anyway, the anticipation of opening presents in the morning-- whenever it came--makes the six-year-old's body clock absolutely stop. Einstein should have looked into it: as Christmas Day approaches, time slows down.
And, on this particular Christmas Eve, my fear and apprehensions about what I was doing made the clock move especially slowly. About two weeks after I got into bed, I decided that it must be time. My mother had already been in twice to check on me, and my father once. I had pretended to be asleep the second and third times, and it had been a long interval with no return visit.
I slipped out of my bed as quietly as I could, and glided over to the door. I stopped, cupped my hand against the door, and listened.
Nothing.
Again trying to do my best impersonation of a church mouse, I grabbed my blanket and slowly opened the door. It creaked. The thunderous noise resounded throughout the house, and I wondered why everyone wasn't jumping out of bed to investigate. But I stopped dead in my tracks, and they didn't jump out. No one even stirred.
I was finally out in the hallway, and in what otherwise was a dark living room, the Christmas tree burned brightly. It is impossible to describe the beauty of a Christmas tree in the middle of the night. Flashes and flickers of reds, greens, blues, oranges, and yellows were everywhere, dancing off of silver and gold ornaments and splattering off of tinsel. The star twinkled calmly atop the brilliant calliope of light, indifferent to the splendor beneath it. And, everywhere else, there was darkness and quiet.
I moved swiftly and silently to my perch behind the couch, and set up my vigil. The night crept on. Once in awhile, I looked out at the tree, and the few presents (from relatives--yecch; undoubtedly underwear) that were stacked beneath it. But mostly I hid behind the couch, afraid to be seen by anyone, especially Santa.
I had been there a long time when it began to dawn on me that this might not be a very smart idea. What if Billy Cagney is wrong, and my mother is right? What if staying up late really does mean that Santa won't come? Certainly it was very late now, and he still wasn't here. Didn't that prove it? And shouldn't I abandon this hare-brained scheme and get back to bed? These ideas floated through my mind, but I didn't finish debating them. I fell asleep.
A tinkling of the ornaments on the tree awakened me. I lay there, perfectly still, listening to the sounds. Someone moving about. The unmistakable crinkle of wrapping paper. More glass ornaments tinkling against each other. Something else. A low laugh, quiet but deep. Was someone saying "Ho ho ho"?
From the pit of my stomach, I could feel it start. The pang shot through my bowels, wrapped around my liver, jetted up my spine and into my head, wound its way back down again. And then I recognized it: pure unadulterated terror. What in heaven's name was I doing? Somehow, my being awake had escaped his notice, but he could realize it at any second. And if he did, no presents! And there was that other possibility, but I didn't want to think about it. What if I looked out there and it was my father? Suddenly, I didn't want to look either way.
"Ho ho ho!" Quiet but unmistakable this time, it came again.
I still had not moved even a finger since I had awakened, and I didn't even know if I could. But that laugh, that trademark laugh; I just had to know. I looked around for a way to peer out from behind the couch completely unnoticed.
And then something deep inside my mind conjured up an image of myself staring out over the top of the couch straight into the eyes of Santa!
"Ho ho, what have we got here? Not in bed, are you? Must talk to Rudolph about that; he's not supposed to take me to any homes with bad children in them. Oh well, sorry about this, but the presents have to go. Rules and regulations, rules and regulations."
"Santa, no! Please! I just--Billy Cagney said--Please Santa!" Tears forming in my eyes. "Please!"
"Sorry. Rules and regulations."
I shook my head. Hard. The image went away. I couldn't go straight up over the top. But what could I do? Then I thought of the coffee table abutting the side of the couch that bent around the corner. I might be able to squeeze my head past the couch underneath the table. I'd be able to see out, but Santa couldn't possibly see in. It was perfect!
After some work (try to do something like that without making a sound) I finally had my head through. I had been facing the carpet while crawling, and it was time to turn my head up. The movement in the room, and the occasional laughter, had continued, but I felt certain that it must be near its end. How many presents could we possibly get? I had to look now, or risk missing the chance.
I looked. Bending over to place something into an incredibly large pile was a large fat man. He wore a bright red suit with white fur trim and a large black belt that reflected the glow of the tree lights. His white beard looked like a thick covering of snow on his chin, and white hair showed from beneath his red cap. He was taking brightly wrapped presents out of a large sack that he had laid on the floor, and piling them up beneath the tree. There could be no doubt. It was indeed Santa Claus.
Outside in the yard I heard the jingling of sleigh bells. I yearned to be able to see that, too, but I knew it was impossible. The man himself would have to do. And I kept on watching him as he finished emptying the large white bag, and occasionally chuckling to himself. I thought about Billy Cagney. Boy, when he was wrong, he was really wrong. I laughed to myself at the thought.
At least I thought I was laughing to myself. But suddenly, Santa stopped his piling of the presents, and turned abruptly toward the couch. For two minutes that could've been two years I did not breathe. He looked into the darkness that I knew surrounded me, searching for something. Once he looked directly at me, and I froze, but then his glance kept on moving. Then he turned once again to his work, and took the last present out of the bag and placed it gently under the tree.
As he stood up, I could see him clearly in the light of the tree. He seemed like a giant. A wonderful red-clad giant. He picked up his now-limp sack and started to walk out of the room, but suddenly he stopped, and I think my heart stopped with him: he was coming toward me! I shrank back against the wall as Santa Claus approached, once again looking for something in the darkness. Looking for me. I looked at the extraordinary pile of presents and imagined it gone. He was still coming, still looking.
Then he stopped. He seemed to be staring right at me, and I prayed that the darkness under the coffee table would cover me. And, slowly, he started to smile. And then he started to laugh. His belly began to quake--it really did look like "a bowlful of jelly"! And he chuckled for a moment, and then he turned and walked out through the hallway.
I waited a long time without hearing anything. I knew that we had left milk and cookies for him; we always did. I figured he must be having his snack. (If everyone left him milk and cookies, no wonder he got so fat.) Then I heard the kitchen door open, and I heard it close. We didn't have a chimney, so it didn't surprise me at all to hear him leave through the door.
Suddenly I thought of the reindeer. I scrambled up from my concealment, not caring what noise I might make, and dashed into the kitchen. Sure enough, the milk and cookies were gone. I ran to the door and looked out. Somewhere in the night I heard sleigh bells, but I could not see a thing. I thought I should feel dejected at that, but I found I was smiling. Santa really had come. And I had seen him.
I believed in Santa Claus until I was eleven. Oh, sure, I had times in there when I could easily have given up the belief, but I knew something my friends did not: I had actually seen Santa. I had told Billy Cagney about it, of course, the next day, but he had not believed me. He said I must have dreamed it. And he had looked for sleigh marks; there were none. ("Of course not, Billy; the reindeer fly." "God, are you stupid!") So I didn't tell my story to anyone else. But I knew. And I believed.
Time passes, though, and we grow up. The day came when childhood memory was not strong enough to argue in the face of what clearly was reality. And my father told me the truth when he knew I was ready to hear it, and I accepted it, and Christmas assumed a new kind of meaning.
"It's not that Santa isn't real," he said. "It's like I told you a long time ago; he's magic. And magic lives inside each of us, especially at this time of year. Your mother and I love you, and we want to make you happy. That's what Santa Claus is."
And now I have my own little girl, and I watch her as she opens the presents on Christmas morning, eyes bright and shining, eager to get at the next gift. My father would have loved to see her; he always said if he had had another child he would have had a girl ("a matched set," he said). But my father passed away several years ago, and Christmas took on yet another meaning. It became a time when I could try to make him live again.
I never asked my father about that Christmas Eve, though sometimes I wanted to. Gradually, as the years passed, the entire episode took on an ethereal feeling, a spiritual, dreamlike quality that has long made me doubt whether it ever actually happened.
Even now, though, I refuse to ask my mother about it. Because, if it was a dream, I don't want to know it. I only want to think about that night as my memory plays it, and remember where the magic truly is.
These pages copyright Karen Kopriva 2002;
all rights are reserved