#74-THE LAST SANTA

Before you get started I want you to know there are “spoilers” for those of you who may still BELIEVE.  So don’t read any further.

I was in the second grade the fall of 1949, and I had a horrible revelation foisted on me by a mean classmate at school.  My parents found themselves with a hysterical child, ranting on and on about a stupid boy and his stupid ideas.

I was VERY angry because he had snidely said,” Only BABIES believed in Santa Clause."  This boy was a “know it all jerk” and made my life miserable for the entire day. 

I was extremely upset, but what I did not realize at the time was that Mom and Dad were devastated.  I was too young to be robbed of this beautiful concept.   They weren’t ready to let their baby grow up.  By the end of the day they had hatched a plan to thwart this young man’s intentions.

The first was to have a conversation with the young man and his father.  Since my father was the Superintendent of that school district, this was a sobering event for the bully and his dad.  I was never bothered again.

The second strategy was what ended up being the most memorial event of my young life.  They set out to PROVE that Santa did indeed exist! 

Mom and Dad told me this story several times over the years and now I am sharing it with you.

On Christmas Eve it was snowing and we went about our usual tasks of setting out milk and cookies after figuring out the most likely place for Santa to get into our second floor apartment.  It was finally decided that he would probably come in through my bedroom window because it overlooked the roof of the grocery store next door.  Cookies and milk was set on my nightstand and the window was unlocked so Santa could easily gain entrance. 

I will never forget what my eyes were awakened to the next morning.  It was cold in my room because my window was slightly ajar.  There was snow accumulated on my windowsill and footprints made of snow just below the window on my rug.  The footprints led off into the front room and were slowly melting from the warmth.

I bounded from my bed and bumped into my parents who were standing there pointing out the window with amazed looks on their faces.  I turned and looked out the window and THERE on the rooftop of Shindlers Grocery Store were the long straight marks of Santa’s sleigh and tiny reindeer tracks. 

Just outside and below my window was a large round place smoothed out where Santa had obviously set his large sack of presents.  I WAS ESTATIC!  It was the best Christmas ever and turned out to be my last because other kids were determined to make this BABY grow up on their timetable not my parent’s.

What I didn’t hear that day was my mother gasped as placed her hand over her mouth.  What I didn’t see was that the sleigh tracks came across the roof and drove right past (over) a chimney in the middle of the roof.   Dad in his frantic early morning effort, with a closeline pole, had failed to notice the irregularity.

Nevertheless, it had the desired effect and proved to be one of my favorite stories to be told each Christmas.  Their expression of LOVE was the best present I could have received.  Christmas is supposed to be about the expression of LOVE.  I think that a lot of the people in this world have forgotten that.
HAVE  A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE !!!

kt 2010