By Alan Gaudin
Christmas and Christmas vacation will be on us in another few weeks, but before they come, we all have to go through the rigorous final weeks of school with all the catching up and final tests. This year, we get out of school just a few days before Christmas. Every time this happens, I always seem to miss Christmas, or feel like I do, because just when you get settled down to drink your eggnog, somebody jerks it out, hands you a bottle of champagne, and yells “Happy New Year.”
My parents were always kind of sneaky getting me Christmas presents when I was a kid. Being as young as I was, I was unaware of time and all I knew when it was late in the year and that it was cold, I didn’t know Christmas was just around the corner. They would take me in a store just before Christmas, decorations went up and maybe set me on a tricycle or something with a “Wouldn’t you like to have something like that?”
“Oh yeah,” I’d say, but since it wasn’t often that I got something as big as a tricycle, and I thought they were just letting me play on it for awhile, it never even crossed my mind that while my mother took me over to the race sets or something, and for the only time ever, showed an interest in the toys with me, my father was sneaking around trying to cram the tricycle in the trunk of our old Buick before I caught on.
Christmas morning, I would see the tricycle and say, “Gee, Santa must shop at the same place we do.” Brilliant rationalizing, I know, but that was the only way that he could have gotten that same tricycle unless, of course, I was to think of the unthinkable possibility.
When you get older, and find out the truth about Santa Claus, usually from some know-it-all kid at school who has a sparkling revelation to deliver about religion, the Santa Claus religion that is, you really don’t want to believe it. It’s a slow process at first. First you say, “Well I don’t believe that flying reindeer stuff. Maybe he used to use that side, but in the modern age, he must be using a jet.” But finally one day, you realize that it’s just a child’s dream, and you don’t believe it anymore. Then you feel kind of sad, but also all grown up. I had my own theory. “I know my parents are really buying that stuff, so it’s a simple deduction. All the stores must stay open on Christmas eve so after all us kids are in bed, they take off and buy it all. Those fly devils, they think they’re smart, but I got ’em pegged.”
Anyway, being hit is the last pager of the semester, this will also be my last column of the semester. If you think that’s bad news, then I appreciate it; if you think that’s good news, well, it’s a free country. More power to you.