Yes, Virginia, I’ve seen it with my
own eyes
When DS was in
preschool, one of my mothers’-support group friends related a scandal in her
daughter’s pre-school. Like us, my friend’s family is Jewish. Unlike us, who
sent our kids to a Jewish pre-school, Christian families were the majority in her
daughter’s school.
Shortly after
Christmas one of the kids asked her daughter what Santa had given her. The
three-year-old gave an answer, which set the stage to a scandalous reaction.
“We’re Jewish,”
she said. “We get presents from real people.”
Other parents
wanted my friend to teach her daughter that it was not okay to infer that Santa
isn’t a real person, and do it ASAP.
The thing is—
Santa is real if you dig deeper.
Santa Claus, the
giver of presents to bring joy to children on the darkest days of the year, is
an idea. As such, it is real. But abstractions are beyond children’s literal
thinking and so various individuals dressed in red, and donning floppy red hats
with white pompoms, have taken to manifest the spirit of gift-giving on this
one particular day.
Some years later,
our next-door neighbors, a Norwegian family, asked if their friend could come
over to our house on Christmas Eve and dress up in the Santa outfit so he can
make the appearance for their twin daughters, then barely a year old. As he’d
be coming straight from work, they needed a place for him to get into the
outfit. Of course, we said yes. They left his outfit and a sack full of
presents for their twins at our house. Our kids, by then teens, found the whole
thing rather funny. It hadn’t been part of their childhood.
When the friend showed
up, he was so drunk I had to help him wiggle into the outfit and catch him so
he wouldn’t fall down while doing so. He needed help at every step. I lit his
way to the neighbors’ door, holding my breath so he not collapse on the sidewalk.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw their door open and their arranged-for
Santa waddle inside.
The next year, our
neighbors asked if our son, by then in first year of college, would do the
favor of being their Santa. “Last year didn’t go too well,” they said. Apparently,
they had no other friends who would volunteer.
I asked DS, and he
said he’d do it. It would be like a fun acting gig. The day after, our
neighbors told me they had never had such a great Santa. Apparently, DS prepared
Norwegian sentences to utter in an altered “Ho-Ho-Ho” voice, and his whole act
was so hilariously memorable that as far as they were concerned he has the volunteer
job for life. This Jewish Santa was the real deal.
And he did indeed
materialized the spirit of Santa Claus for the next few years. The year he
went to graduate school in Paris, the neighbors were bereft that he would not
be there for their yearly tradition. By the time he returned from France, the
twins no longer needed this concretization of holiday spirit. Santa now came in
their own gift giving and receiving, no red hat and white cotton wool beard needed.
But I can attest
at least one Santa was Jewish. I have the picture to prove it.
Please, no humbugs,
folks. May the joy of gift giving and receiving be with you the whole yearlong.
Generosity and blessings
for the
4 comments:
This is hilarious! But there is a St. Nicholas and he's one of my favorite saints.
That was so sweet of him.
What a fun story! An inebriated Santa must've been hilarious!
Wishing you a very happy, healthy 2022!
What a wonderful story! I love it! Your son was so generous to share his talents to bring joy to others--definitely in the true spirit of gift-giving.
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