When I was a little boy, there were two traditions
we celebrated on Christmas Eve.
I was raised in a religious home, and every year we
set up an elaborate Nativity scene complete with a
hand-made wooden crèche. There were donkeys, horses,
and a herd of sheep (not just two or three, mind
you), and a half-dozen shepherds to keep watch over
their flock by night.
The wise men were there, too, along with their
camels, which had been gaudily adorned with blankets
fashioned from small swatches of fabric onto which
were sewn strands of costume jewelry. That was mom's
touch. She wanted those camels to look like beasts
of burden fit for kings.
There were at least five angels, and hoards of other
creatures, human and otherwise. Mary and Joseph
knelt on either side of an empty wooden feeding
trough. A red rooster perched precariously on the
trough's edge, awaiting the birth of the Christ
child.
Then, on Christmas Eve, before going to bed we would
un-wrap the small, cherubic baby Jesus and place him
into the manger in the center of the crèche.
Mom and dad also thought it was important that I
experience the Santa Claus phenomenon. Maybe it was
because Santa Claus hadn't visited their house too
often when they were kids. They both grew up during
the Great Depression and did without many things
during their childhood.
"I was lucky if I got an apple or a piece of
chocolate," I remember hearing my dad saying on
several occasions in response to some
out-of-proportion whining coming from my mouth.
And so, every Christmas Eve, in addition to the
Nativity procession, I'd leave a glass of milk and a
peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the coffee table
in the living room. Sure enough, the next morning,
there was the glass, now with only a small puddle of
milk on the bottom. All that remained of the
sandwich were scattered pieces of crust and a few
bread crumbs.
It was years later, as a six-year old, that my
father sprang it on me that this St. Nick stuff was
all a big, elaborate hoax.
So traumatic was the experience that I remember the
incident vividly to this day.
We were driving together on our way to a department
store to do some shopping when my dad asked me what
I wanted for Christmas. I don't remember exactly how
I answered, but it was something like, "I already
wrote Santa a letter and he knows."
Dad must have not yet spoken to mom. He was fishing
for clues, apparently having no idea about what I
was expecting under the tree.
"Santa Claus doesn't exist," he said
matter-of-factly.
Time stood still for an instant as his words slowly
percolated deeply into my cranium. I caught my
breath as that hollow feeling crept up in my chest
cavity - the kind you experience whenever some
horrible, inescapable, undoable realization comes
over you.
I was crushed.
Speechless, all I could do was burst out in tears.
Jolly old St. Nick was nothing more than a big fat
phony in a red suit.
“Oh, I'm sorry, son," he said, underestimating the
depth of the psychological gash he had just
inflicted by delivering those four words in one fell
swoop of his tongue.
"I thought you knew."
When our children were born we decided we would
spare them from a similar rude awakening. We
emphasized only one of my childhood traditions in
our home during Christmas.
We explained to our two sons about the One who "sees
you when you're sleeping" and who "knows when you're
awake." But instead of relying on a myth, we
anchored those truths in something that was certain,
revealing to our children that His name isn't Santa
Claus, it's "Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace," as the Old
Testament prophet Isaiah wrote and George Frederic
Handel set to music centuries later.
And what's really the greatest Christmas present of
all to this dad is that I won't ever have to worry
about telling my children that The Real Giver of
Christmas joy only exists in the imagination of a
child's heart.
n
