Once Upon a Christmas Page 4
Luv, Luv, Luv,
Me, Little Ezra, Big Ezra, Mandy
You’ve Got Mail!
From: Rose, Capnmittens, MN
November 10, ’99 @Juno.com
Dear Liz and Ed:
Just a quick message re: Xmas. Charlie is really excited even though our tickets are costing a fortune and flying always gives me a migraine. I’ll probably spend Xmas in bed. Could Charlie and I have your bedroom if the migraine is a bad one?
But no matter how sick I am, count on me to do the cooking. I’ve get some new recipes I’m drying to try, Mexican and Middle East cuisine. I’ll send you a list of the ingredients I’ll need. You can probably find most of it at Albertsons or Publix. Otherwise, you may have to try some of those specialty stores in Tampa.
Keep your fingers crossed. Charlie and Aesop always get the flu for Christmas. Be sure to get your shots. If Charlie and Aesop are coughing, sneezing, and throwing up, and I have a terrible migraine, we should for sure have your bedroom, don’t you think? I mean, to protect the others.
Bye, Rose
You’ve Got Mail!
From: Big Sister Barbie in Fourwheel Drive, MN
November 10, ’99 @aol.com
Hi, Mama and Daddy,
Can’t wait for Christmas. Really, the twins are extra excited, even full of the extra dose of Ritalin their pediatrician prescribed. She said she’d take them off for their Christmas vacation, so prepare yourselves. They want Popo to take them and their cousins to Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Sea World, MGM, Universal, and Busch Gardens (they hear the other kids tell about the places in Florida their grandparents take them). But I said they had to choose three.
By the way, Mama, Mandy and Rose both think they’re doing the cooking. Joe says if Rose cooks, we’ll all get the you-know-whats from that you-know-what she calls “Goor-May.” Mama, why don’t you just tell Rose it’s your kitchen, and Mandy is your daughter? Joe says blood is thicker than water, and you wouldn’t let him or Big Ezra do the cooking, would you? Daddy, you’re on the condo board, aren’t you? Just tell Rose there are rules against exotic cooking smells. Anyway I thought you should know before we all get down there and the you-know-what hits the fan.
More news: Joe told Hans and Fritz there’s no Santa Claus, and they told every kid in their class. The teacher really got fumed because a lot of the kids were crying and like hysterical, and their parents had to leave work to take them home. Joe says it’s about time they all got a good dose of reality. He is so practical. But you better warn Mandy. You know how nutty she and Big Ezra are about Santa Claus and Little Ezra. Joe says Big Ezra still believes in the Easter Bunny, so don’t put any investment eggs in his basket. Get it?
More later, I’m on my way to the doctor.
Later: Just got home from Dr. Katzenjammer. Guess what? No Popo’s Egg Nog Specials for me this Christmas. I’m pregnant, and it looks like twins again.
Mama, could you keep Hans and Fritz for a couple weeks after Christmas so Joe and I can have some “alone” time? You know, before I get too big. I called their teacher, and she says not to worry about missing school. She said to take the rest of the year if we need it.
Christmas can’t come too soon for us.
Barbie
You’ve Got Mail!
From: Brother Charlie Boy in Capnmittens, MN
November 11, ’99 @aol.com
Hey, Folks, How ya’ll doin’?
I had a helluva time getting plane tickets, but I lucked out. GREAT DEAL!
Flights into Sarasota and Tampa were pretty expensive, so I booked us on a Disneyworld charter (pretty shrewd, huh?).
We get into Orlando at midnight on the 24th. With the tickets and all, I couldn’t afford to rent a car, but like I told Rose, you’d want to pick us up anyway in the big, new Lincoln you bought. Besides, I figured you’d be looking for an excuse to get away from Barbie’s twins. Right, Dad? Better get there a little early. You know how Rose is about airports, especially with a migraine. And me and Aesop will probably have the flu. Don’t worry about driving back from the airport, Dad. I’ll pilot that baby. We’ll open the new Lincoln up and let ‘er whistle Dixie, right, Dad?
Hey, darned nice of you to take all four of the kids to the parks for two days. Just heard from Barbie. Kinda keep an eye on Aesop, though. He throws up easy on some of them rides, especially if he’s got the flu. Remember how I always threw up easy, Dad?
What a super Christmas we’re going to have. You two can just sit back, take it easy, and enjoy it all. You shouda retired and moved to Florida years ago.
Charlie Boy
P.S. Got them shrimp yet?
Remind me to pay you back.
BRADENTON HERALD
Monday, November 12, 1999
Classified
Condos/Villas
For Sale: Almost-never-lived-in 2BR, 2BA condo fully
furnished. Owners must sell before Dec. 25.
Family situation requires quick move!
Make an offer!
.
A Christmas Secret
Pssst. I mentioned this to Bob and Carol, Pete and Sally, Ron and Louise, and maybe a few others. But let’s keep this between you and me: I heard Santa Claus isn’t coming to town anymore
PEOPLE WHO TELL me a secret should also tell me how many other people they have told. Sometimes I try to tell a secret I was told, but can’t find anyone who hasn’t heard it. There may be some people who promise never to tell and never do. But not many. I have a head full of secrets from people who promised never to tell them to anybody, but told them to me. Furthermore, they made me promise never to tell anyone else. I promised, but told them anyway. It seems that secrets are easier to tell than to keep. That’s just human nature.
That said, I am about to reveal a secret. One I have kept for more years than I can remember. My generation may criticize me for revealing it now, but after much thought I am going to, as the saying goes, come clean. It is time for the generation becoming grandparents to know the secret their parents have kept from them for, as I said earlier, I don’t remember how many years.
Although I am not certain as to the when of what happened, I do remember clearly what did happen—one Christmas Eve Santa Claus didn’t show up. Plainly and simply put, he made no appearance whatsoever. No explanatory note, no sign of having tried to get here, but couldn’t make it. Just a no-show. No warning, no apology. It had never happened before. Pick any letter of the alphabet, c, for example, and you can find words beginning with that letter to describe the panic that ensued that Christmas morning: concern, confusion, consternation, chaos.
Nobody could figure out just what the devil was going on. It was a real shocker. A lot like the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, only worse. Covered the whole country, rich and poor, Catholics and Protestants, Democrats and Republicans, blacks, browns, whites … Didn’t matter. Santa just damn well didn’t stop anywhere. Over, done, and out! Period. Maybe in other countries, too. News didn’t travel much beyond the borders of a country back then. Could have been worldwide.
What to do? Trusting and expectant folks had paid to have their chimneys cleaned for nothing, stuck their stockings on fireplaces, left room under their Christmas trees for presents, left milk and cookies on kitchen tables for … zip, zero, zilch. The jolly old man with white whiskers, a red suit, and a sack of presents slung over his shoulder was AWOL. Nobody knew what to think, let alone what to do.
Kids were in their beds waiting for dads to light their Christmas trees and call, “Santa’s been here!” But Santa had not been. No trace of him. Trees were untrimmed, stockings on fireplaces hung limp and empty, floors under the trees were bare. And the excited kiddies upstairs with visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads were about to hear the music stop and to lose their faith in Christmas. Something had to be done. Parents had to act fast.
It’s hard to know all that transpired just before sunrise that Christmas morning. Some remembered neighbors running from house to house, sounding the alarm to �
��keep the kids in bed!” Others give credit to party line telephones for spreading the word to four families with one call. Still others say all mothers sensed instinctively something amiss downstairs and kept their kids in bed. Whatever the reason, or reasons, no kid left the bedroom that Christmas morning until an excuse for Santa’s inexcusable behavior had been fabricated and an alternative plan for celebrating the holiday had been hatched.
“Santa’s got the flu, and he wants us to spend
the day playing the games he left last year.”
“Santa’s sleigh got caught in a blizzard when
leaving the North Pole. He wants us to go to
church and pray for better weather next year.”
“The reindeer took a wrong turn, and the boys
and girls on Mars got your toys.”
“Stop blubbering and think of all the Jewish
kids. They never get Christmas presents.”
And so it went from family to family until that Christmas Day slid into the past, and the painful memory of the day receded from the consciousness of those innocent children whose own innocent children are now giving birth to equally innocent children. And so it goes.
The day passed and faded into history, as would the children’s memories of the Christmas Kris Kringle passed them by. No lasting harm done that year. However, there was no guarantee Santa would resume normal operations the following year. What if he had developed a problem with alcohol and suffered eggnog hangovers? What if he were having marital problems? No one knew much about Mrs. Claus. What if the unthinkable had occurred: what if Santa Claus had died?
Speculation fueled more speculation until the mayor of a small town in southern Illinois put it all in perspective when he declared to the town council that, “Christmas just isn’t Christmas without Santa Claus.” An alderman at that meeting was so impressed by the mayor’s perceptiveness and succinct summation of the situation that he put the mayor’s words into a motion: “I move that Christmas just isn’t Christmas without Santa Claus.” Another alderman seconded the motion, there was a short discussion, and the motion passed unanimously. The following day, the minutes of that meeting were published in The Trumpeter, the local newspaper, on a page safe from the eyes of the children who read only the comics, or as most readers called them then, the “funnies.”
It just so happened that several days after the publication of those minutes in The Trumpeter, the editor of National Geographic was scanning small-town newspapers in search of a locale for a future story, when he spotted those minutes tucked discreetly away from the funnies. It also just so happened that my cousin, Arvin, was at that time a crack reporter for National Geographic and well known for some pretty racy articles about aborigines in out-of-the-way places doing out-of-the-way things, with pictures and all.
So Arvin, my cousin, was summoned to the office of the editor of National Geographic.
“Arvin, we got to find out what the hell is up with Santa Claus. This damn dereliction of duty could give our kids the idea there ain’t no Santa Claus at all. Think what would happen if this hit the fan. Raise up a nation full of cynics, nonbelievers. Banks being robbed, blood running deep in the streets. Let’s face it, Arvin, Christmas just isn’t Christmas without Santa Claus. You get your ass to the North Pole and find out what the hell that jolly old elf is up to.”
In no time at all my cousin, Arvin, was pushing the doorbell on the front door of Mr. and Mrs. Claus. And because of his many experiences with the unusual, he was not taken aback when the door was opened by an elderly three-foot elf wearing a green and red pinafore. Now Arvin is a very tall fellow, and his greeter nearly fell over backward taking his measure. After a few pleasantries she agreed to grant him an audience with her husband. Accordingly, she escorted my cousin through the house and out the back door to a small, red building with a Santa Claus nameplate on the door. When he stepped inside, Arvin found himself face to white beard with the culprit in full uniform.
I suppose most reporters would be overcome with emotion at meeting Santa, but Arvin was accustomed to interviewing even stranger folk in stranger dress. So he got right down to business.
“Mr. Claus,” he began, “you caused a helluva stir in the United States of America by forgetting to drop by Christmas Eve.”
“Oh, I didn’t forget.”
“Then what happened? We depend on you to provide our Christmas. Our children expect you to be there for them.”
“Is that so?”
Arvin detected a frosty tone to Santa’s question. So to ease any tension that might be building, he injected a bit of levity into the interview. “To all of us in America Christmas just isn’t Christmas without Santa Claus.” Then he added, pointing to a bank of snow outside the picture window, “If you get my drift.”
Santa smiled and looked my cousin straight in the eye. “Now let me give you my drift, Mr. smarty-pants National Geographic reporter. I’ve seen some of your articles, and I suspect I may be the only fully-clothed subject you have interviewed.” This insightful observation took Arvin by surprise and prompted his next probe.
“Touché, Santa. Why don’t you just tell me your story?” And, having said that, he took out his notebook and settled into a chair with carved reindeer-antler arms.
Santa accepted the invitation and began. “For starters, I am old and tired. The last time I tried to sling that big sack over my shoulder, I damn near collapsed. And the arthritis in my fingers hurts like hell every time I slap the reins to get Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Cupid, Comet, Donder and Blitzen off their butts. They’re getting old, too, you know?”
Being a young man at the time and not yet suffering from arthritis, Arvin obviously did not know; but he nodded in assent.
Santa continued, “I am not immortal. Nobody and nothing hang around forever. And furthermore, I am not a jolly old philanthropist who gets a kick out of stuffing oranges and walnuts into stockings hanging on fireplaces. Do I enjoy sliding down sooty old chimneys?” Santa paused. “You ever try that, Mister hot-shot National Geographic reporter?” Arvin shook his head and made an entry in his notebook.
Then Santa got directly to the point of his dissertation. “I am a teacher, Arvin. And every teacher’s ultimate objective is to turn the classroom over to his students when his teaching days are over. Mine are over, but what I taught is still there. Your turn, my boy. Pick it up and run with it.” Arvin looked perplexed.
Santa rose from his La-Z-Boy and pointed an arthritic index finger at his interviewer. “I said, ‘Your turn, my boy.’ Time for you to teach the spirit of Christmas as I have taught it to you. Do you get my drift?” And he gazed out the window Arvin had pointed to only minutes earlier. “Now I will level with you, Arvin. This whole gift-giving lesson I taught has been more fun for me than for you and your offspring. It really is more fun to give than to receive. And your generation will discover that when you start buying all those doll buggies, toy pistols, and Parcheesi games for your kids yourselves.”
Arvin interrupted, “But how …? Where …?”
Santa stopped him in mid-question. “You can damn well betcha you’ll get all the help you need from toy manufacturers, department stores, and specialty shops. They’ll smell a tasty piece of cheese when you put it under their noses. My elves are old, too—you met Mrs. Claus. And the roof on my workshop leaks like hell every spring. I plan to find the young elves jobs at racetracks and pension off the old ones. I have already offered to sell my workshop and warehouse to Wal-Mart. Made an offer on a condo in Florida.”
“But what about our children?” My cousin thought he might be able to convince Santa to stick around for a few more years.
“Oh, don’t worry about your children. You can fool them into believing I’m still on duty. Telling a little white lie is a helluva lot easier than keeping a secret. And when they’re old enough to know better, they’ll be on their way to playing Santa Claus for their own children. You see, son, our teachers leave us, but what they have taught
continues to live if their students have been taught well. Go on home, my boy, and prove to Old Santa I have taught you well. Get my drift?”
Arvin did go home. And he wrote an article about the North Pole. But not until the last page did he write about his interview with Santa. He knew his secret would be safe because no one ever got to the last page of a National Geographic article, including the editor.
Instead, Arvin spread the word in an each-one-tell-one chain of communication. So that by the following Christmas Santa’s legacy was fulfilled. Amazing what Americans can do when they put their minds to it.
Before my cousin died, he gave me the notebook in which he had recorded his interview with Santa Claus. I kept that secret all these years. But now my generation is getting old. Like Santa, we have arthritic fingers, weak hearts, and other ailments. And if we have been good teachers, our children will be Santa to us in our old age, as we were to them in their childhood. And their children will do the same for them. For if there is one thing we know, it is that life is a circle.
A Little Christmas Magic
ON VARIOUS STAGES he had been Ebenezer Scrooge, Jacob Marley, and all three of Dickens’ ghosts. Now, as Purdy walked past the Christmas tree and the piano in the commons area of Northland Acres Retirement Village, right in the middle of Adolph Schmeling’s old cornfield, he whispered his favorite line from the character he had never played, “God bless us … everyone.”
Purdy Boville was born Christmas Eve in the year 1930. The small hospital in northeastern Wisconsin where he was born had never before registered “Purdy” as a birth name, and the nurse who wrote it on the certificate had to ask for the spelling. “The same like he looks,” the young mother answered in the dialect of the region. “Ain’t he purdy as a pitcher though?” And the nurse, not wanting to saddle a boy who weighed ten pounds at birth with the name Pretty, wrote down Purdy Boville. Father’s Name: Leopold. Mother’s Name: Mary Louise. Race: White. Religion: Catholic. And so his life began.