All right, even though the Christmas season starts earlier and earlier, I continue to be the guy who goes out on Christmas Eve and shops like a madman.
Madly rushing from place to place, I fight the other idiots who put it off. The traffic is horrible and on this, the holiest holiday, the other shoppers' attitudes are bad to say the least.
When I was a kid Christmas held much joy, but it held pain, too. In our house we weren’t allowed out of our room until our step-father came out. He always made sure it was 1 p.m. before he did. Then when you ran to the tree you were overjoyed to see the gifts, but that joy was tainted with the realization of how each would get you into trouble in a different way and how each would be used as punishment after the season passed. The BB gun I got in 1969 was taken away and placed on the shelf of my parent’s closet for a couple of years until some other kid came along who deserved it.
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This story is about my son and the Christmas of 1984 when he was 3 years old. In my house Santa didn’t care much for cookies, but he loved chocolate chip cake. So being a real good dad I made sure to make one just for Santa. My son took great joy in cutting a very large piece and placing it with the milk near the tree. We put him to bed, settled into our chairs in the living room and waited for him to go to sleep to perform our evening duties. I’m ashamed to admit it, but that piece of cake was actually talking to me, giving me come hither looks.
We sat there and waited until we were sure he was asleep and I grabbed Santa’s cake and the milk to perform my first duty of the night, which was to make sure Santa ate the cake. I sliced through the cake with a fork and when it hit the plate it made this sound, tink. It was barely audible. Instantly a blood-curdling scream rang from the other end of the house. "Daaaaaaaddddyyyyy!" It scared the mess out of us. I sat the cake down and we ran to his room. Mom stood in the hall out of sight, while I entered his room to see what nightmare he’d had. He was sitting on the bed, furious.
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“What happened little buddy?”
“Tell Mommy to quit eating Santa’s cake.” he said.
I heard my wife stifle a laugh in the hallway. I tucked him back in and we hustled out on the front porch to laugh in the cold. That he heard the tink was funny enough, but in all the years since we’ve never figured out why he thought it was his mom.
Now, he was paying attention, but Santa pays attention, too. We re-entered the house and started assembling toys. I was down on the floor doing something when a nasty little surprise peered at me from under the couch. It was a paper grocery bag — back then they didn’t ask paper or plastic. It had been stuck in the gas heater at the end of the couch, caught on fire, then stomped out and shoved under the couch.
It was a scary he’d apparently done it when we were in the bed and we were very lucky he hadn’t set the house on fire. We immediately removed the stuff from his stocking replacing it with the partially burnt bag. I went outside and pulled a bunch of switches to accompany it. On that Christmas morning there was a look of glee, but there was also a look of horror when he saw what was in his stocking. There was also a letter from Santa to him and one to us about why he’d gotten the switches. I think that was the only time he ever played with fire and was the bestest lesson Santa ever taught my son.