By Charles Romans
Carter County Times
A young man sat before the fire late one Christmas Eve busily wrapping presents. Both of his young children were in bed and his wife had turned in early as well so that the youngest child could be persuaded to go to sleep. This of course left the young man himself with the task upon which he was currently about with somewhat indifferent results; a task to which he was unsuited and had always despised. Knowing his distaste for the task, his wife had provided him with a list of which present belonged to which child, as well as what wrapping paper in which each gift should be wrapped.
Now to be fair, the young man had very little in common with old Scrooge. He was neither selfish nor reluctant as such to give gifts; but he was, however, a little ‘humbuggish’ around the edges as he fought with the numerous rolls of colored paper, scissors which were less than sharp, and of course the tape and bows. And the name tags – those were the worst! The children knew whom the presents were from, so why bother? The entire process seemed quite tedious and pointless to him.
At least he would finally be done with all of the Santa Claus nonsense, he thought somewhat gratefully. The young man’s oldest child was eight, and for at least as many years he had fought unsuccessfully with his wife about Santa Claus, and the presents he supposedly delivered each year. This year, however, he had finally persuaded his wife that it was no longer necessary, and it was with some satisfaction that he did not address a single label from Old Saint Nick. Yet in spite of his long-awaited satisfaction, the young man was forced to admit the victory rang somewhat hollowly in his heart.
It had been the young man’s father-in-law who had been the red-coated saint’s staunchest supporter. He had begun at each birth to fill his grandchildren’s heads with all the nonsense about flying reindeer and jolly fat men giving gifts at Christmas. Worse still, no amount of reasoning on his own part could sway his children’s thoughts. Each year his wife’s father had begun just past Thanksgiving Day to fill the young couple’s home with singing reindeer, dancing Santas, and equally foolish holiday clutter.
This year would be different. The young man had refused to put up more than a token’s worth of decorations, and there was not a single Rudolph to be found around their home. It was neater and far quieter, but even the young man himself was forced to admit (at least privately) that his home also felt less cheerful. And even though he was pleased that he would no longer be forced to give over credit which he himself deserved to the jolly fat man, he genuinely regretted the reason behind his bittersweet victory.
His wife’s father had passed away earlier in the year, and she had not had the heart to argue with him when the young man told her Santa Claus was no longer welcome in their home.
The young man paused in his task to consider the man, and how fond he had personally become of him over the years. He spent long moments, partially unrolled wrapping paper and scissors in hand, and remembered the man’s open smile and giving nature. They were, he decided, good memories he was grateful to have. But he shrugged those memories, and perhaps an uncomfortably growing sense of guilt, aside and went on about his unwelcome chore.
Soon the young man had processed a large pile of presents to go under the tree. He quickly gathered these up and carried them across the room to place them in a neat stack beside the tree, with the largest forming the base of a somewhat uniform pyramid. The intent was when he had completely finished he would spread them out in at least some semblance of order based on size and child, unlike his wife’s preference of merely shoving them haphazardly under the tree and watching the children dig them out later.
He had just turned back toward the remainder of the pile of unwrapped gifts when he saw the plate sitting on the low side table. There was, of course, a glass of milk sitting next to it.
He shook his head slowly, more in sadness than in anger. Slowly he crossed the room and looked down at the plate of lemon cookies (her father’s favorite) shaped like sleighs and felt his wife’s grief. There had not been enough time since his passing – if there ever is – and especially during this season her mind would drift back over the memories of Christmases past, and the emptiness of those to come without him. He understood, or at least tried. And because he really wasn’t much like Scrooge at all, he wouldn’t say anything about the lapse.
But he did eat three of the cookies and washed them down with some of the milk because he had bought the presents, after all.
Perhaps it was the weight of old memories or simply that the task required much more time than he had expected, but when he had finished the young man decided to sit down for a moment in the recliner and enjoy the fruits of his labors. The scene was quite pleasant with the twinkling lights on the tree and the crackling fire reflecting off the neat pyramids of brightly colored presents. His relaxation gave way to drowsiness and before long he had drifted off to sleep on memories of other Christmases and his father-in-law. What was that he would tell the kids?, he mused as he drifted off. ‘If you stop believing in Santa, he might stop believing in you.’ He could still see him winking as he said it, and hear the children laughing . . .
“Do I begin by asking what I have done to be deserve being shut out,” a strange voice shocked the young man from his slumber. “Or should I ask why you have been eating my cookies?”
The young man sat bolt upright in surprise, or at least attempted to do so. Somehow while he slept he had raised the footrest on the recliner, and for several moments all he was able to do was flail about as he searched for the handle to lower it. But he recovered quickly, slamming the footrest down and jumping to his feet. He must still be asleep and dreaming, he thought, or the victim of some sort of trick. He could not possibly be seeing what his eyes showed him. There was a strange man in his living room – a man who, looked but could not possibly be, Santa Claus.
“Because Santa Claus doesn’t really exist?” the strange visitor finished his thought. “Really, John,” he continued, somewhat amused as he dusted the snow from his bright red coat onto the hearth. “After all this time you still get overly excited about such a small thing.”
The initial shock was quickly being replaced by irritation and apprehension. “I really don’t think a stranger standing in my living room in the middle of the night is ‘a small thing,” he replied with what sternness he could muster.
“But I’m not a stranger, my boy,” the man answered dismissively. “You’ve known me all of your life, in spite of the way you have been behaving for most of it. Of course,” he said with an impish gleam in his eye, “it doesn’t really matter because according to you I don’t exist. Must be why I didn’t set off your security system.”
“You could be some nutjob with delusions of grandeur,” John snapped. “And how did you get in without setting off the alarm? Maybe I should just call the police, and they can ask you that.
An oddly sad smile parted the stranger’s lips, as he turned toward the fireplace. It was a strangely familiar expression John had seen on another face, but he couldn’t quite remember to whom it belonged. The faint glow of the dying fire lit his profile, and John thought he was about to speak, but instead he turned away and stared quietly into the embers. The man might be harmless enough, but for his family’s sake he couldn’t afford to take any chances. With one eye on the unwanted visitor’s back he began searching for the telephone.
“Did you look under the chair cushions?” the man offered helpfully.
“What was that?” John asked suspiciously.
The sadness was mostly gone from the man who had turned as he spoke. The impish gleam had returned to his sparkling eyes. “You called time and Temperature just before you fell asleep,” he smiled, stroking his long, gray beard. “The app on your cell would have been easier, but you misplaced it too.”
“How long have you been in my house?” John demanded. This was quickly passing beyond irritating into downright creepy territory.
“Obviously longer than I was welcome,” the other man laughed. It was a warm, deep sound which had an annoyingly calming effect on John’s nerves. As he laughed he pulled off his green mittens and folded them up, stuffing them in a pocket of the long red coat he wore. “The number is 9 1 1, just in case you forgot,” he offered, as he shed the overcoat and hung it on a coat rack John knew did not belong in his home.
“And your phone is sitting on the counter next to the cheese and mustard you forgot to put back in the fridge.”
“You’re not in a position to make jokes,” John almost snapped. “Home invasion is a serious crime. Besides, I thought Santa Claus was more touchy-feely, and less smart aleck.”
The man laughed again, and before John could react he stepped across the intervening space to snatch one of the cookies and take a bite from it. “There is a lot you don’t know about me, my boy,” he said around a mouthful of cookie.
“Put that back,” John ordered, though still keeping his distance.
“You surprise me, John,” he replied, swallowing and taking a quick drink of the milk. “I would have thought even you would not begrudge a tired old man a bite on such a cold night. It is only ten above zero – you did call, after all. Besides, lemon is my favorite,” he added contentedly.
“I thought chocolate chip was your favorite,” John answered with more sarcasm than he’d intended. “It’s in all the commercials after all.”
“Chocolate chip is my favorite, too,” he replied with another deep laugh. “Come to think of it, I suppose they are all my favorites. Thank You, John. I’d never thought of that before.”
“You’re welcome,” John answered dryly.
“But my absolute favorite cookies are the ones the kids make themselves,” the man said with a merry twinkle in his eyes. “The ones that aren’t baked long enough and are still gooey – those are the best! And when they bake them too long and the cookie gets too crunchy; that’s the absolute best too!”
Whoever this man was, deluded intruder or a figment of his own imagination, John had to admit that he was all into the role. He had found the cordless phone, and now held it at the ready, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to believe he was in any real danger. “Shouldn’t you be off delivering toys somewhere,” he mumbled finally in exasperation.
“Oh, I deliver more than toys,” he answered with a good-natured grin. Somehow he had snagged another cookie without John seeing him do so.
“Branching out, are we?” John asked. “I thought you’d be too busy for a second job?”
The man stopped in the process of biting the top off a lemon-flavored Christmas Tree, and frowned slightly. “Now that was just rude,” he answered, lowering the cookie. “I’m sure Joanna taught you better than that, young man.”
John’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, and he brought up the phone where he could see both the lighted numbers and the stranger’s face at the same time. “How do you know my mother’s name?” he demanded. “Did you hack into my computer? I can still call the police, you know.”
The man who looked so much like, but could not possibly be, Santa Claus, paused for a long moment then sighed deeply as though weighed down by all the sadness in the world. “I should have known this wouldn’t be easy,” he said finally. “You can be such a stubborn, unfriendly man, John.”
John laughed himself, then; a short, humorless sound.
“Oh, am I?” he shot back. “And I suppose you have come to teach me the true meaning of Christmas, have you? Well, don’t waste your time or mine,” he said, crossing his arms defiantly. “I have seen ‘It’s a Wonderful Life three times already. Or is this going to be one of those things where I will be visited by spirits and relive all the mistakes in my life? No thanks,” he said with more bitterness than anger. “I believe I’ll just take a hard pass on that, and you can go annoy someone else.”
His long beard rustled as the man slowly, sadly, shook his head. “No spirits, John,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Just me this trip.”
“Well, even that’s too much, ‘Santa’,” he said with no attempt to hide the sarcasm. “But since it’s Christmas, I’ll give you a whole three seconds to leave before I call the police.”
“Okay, John, I can see we are getting nowhere fast,” the man countered compassionately. “Just five minutes. Give me five minutes, then I will leave and not bother you ever again.”
“Why should I?”
“Because it won’t hurt you, or cost you a thing, John,” he said quietly. “Do it for your own sake, and for Ben’s memory.”
“That was a cheap shot,” John said, his anger rising. But he was no longer surprised by the stranger’s knowledge of his life, and simply shrugged. “Go ahead. The clock is running.”
Perhaps it was the fact that the suit the man wore seemed far richer than any he had ever seen, or perhaps it was the soft light from the tree and the fireplace backlighting him, or perhaps it could have been the man himself, but whatever the reason John found himself thinking that if there were a Santa Claus then this man would be him. Of course it wasn’t-couldn’t be – him, John thought with more disappointment than he would admit even to himself. The stranger probably just had enough money and determination to feed his delusions. Still, John wondered how long it had taken him to perfect the grandfatherly look he wore so well.
“You’re right about that being a cheap shot, John,” the man admitted. He had turned slightly to stare into the fire, and his profile had turned quite somber. “But I had to get through to you somehow, and I know how you feel about Sarah’s father.”
“And just why did you need to get through to me,” John demanded. “And don’t give me any of that crap about it being for my own good.”
“Why don’t I just say what I came to say,” the man answered after a moment’s pause. When John shrugged noncommittally, he continued.
“People say the world is a cold, hard place,” he began, staring into the fire as though the embers revealed things he would rather not have seen. “And it can be, I know. Bad things happen to good people, John; and well, sometimes bad people happen, too. We get so involved in the business of life that it becomes hard to care about other people, or even remember that we should. It becomes easier to distance ourselves from the people around us and to insulate ourselves from everything outside of our own little piece of the world.”
“And when that happens, John, we need someone to remind us that deep down inside, most of us are actually good people.”
“And I suppose that’s where you come in?” John answered, unmoved and staring at his watch.
“Somewhat, yes,” the man in the red suit agreed. “But John, if I’m not real as you say I’m not, then who is left to remind people to treat each other with compassion and kindness?”
“You tell me,” John answered blandly. “If you can do it in two minutes and sixteen seconds.”
“Okay, I will,” the man laughed softly. “You see it’s really very simple. So simple in fact that even someone as stubborn as you should be able to grasp it. The answer is people like Ben, and your mother, and thousands of people just like them all around the world who believe.”
“You’re that important,” John laughed harshly.
“No, not me, John. It isn’t me at all, but rather what I represent. It doesn’t matter if I’m real or not, John -though to be honest, I rather enjoy it. Call it who or what you want. Perhaps it is something so simple after all as mankind’s basic decency reaching out to his fellow man, his compassion for those less fortunate. You could even call it a part of everyone’s desire for a sense of community. Me, well, I just call it Hope.”
“Hope?”
“Yes, John, Hope,” the man in the Santa suit answered. “Hope that life can be good. Hope that other people can care about you for no other reason than you are part of the Human Race.”
He laughed softly then, a sound so filled with pure joy it almost hurt John’s ears to hear it. “Or maybe it is the hope of a child that he or she has been just good enough all year long that I will bring them a present instead of a lump of coal. And do you want to know a secret, John?” he asked in a conspiratory whisper.
Something about the man’s calm intensity had enamored him, and John was afraid to speak and break the spell. He simply nodded slowly for the man to continue.
“They’ve all been good enough, John,” he said with a broad smile. “Every single precious one of them. And I don’t need to check my list twice to know it.”
“But why does hope have to be Santa Claus?” John whispered.
“It doesn’t, and it’s not. At least not entirely, the man answered with a warm smile. He paused a moment to rub his ample belly gratefully. “I’m a big man, John,” he laughed, loudly and happily. “But even I’m not big enough for the job alone. Still, Santa Claus is as good a place as any to start.”
“Think about it, John. Children are the key to everything. They are the best future we can hope to have. And they know that I love them, no matter what. So, by believing in me, even though they don’t realize it, they are believing – hoping – that they can love the world and that the world can love them back. I’m just the messenger, John. And I work every chance I get. Even holidays,” he added with a wink.
And since the young man, John, really wasn’t at all like Old Scrooge (except, perhaps, at the end) he began to realize what his father-in-law had known all along. He began to remember what his mother had tried to teach him, what he had forgotten for so long. He shook his head and smiled, a little sadly at first, wondering why it had taken a stranger in that ridiculous red suit to make him remember.
“Like I said, John. I’m just the messenger,” Santa Claus said with a smile. “You wanted to remember what it was like, so here I am. That’s why you set out the cookies and milk, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he laughed huskily when he realized he had done just that. “So, I suppose I should put your name on a few of those gifts, shouldn’t I?” he asked
The man in the bright red suit donned his coat and pulled on his mittens. “You already did,” he said in Ben’s voice. He laughed softly like John’s mother, and smiled like a bright, starlit night. And though the beard hid it quite well, John thought it just might have been his own face beneath the whiskers as the man waved and faded into the early Christmas morning…
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
