Every year the pageantry gets a little more elaborate. Every year the pow-wow gets more and more serious. Every year my family has to decide if the truth can stand one more bite at the apple. It's a decision we all have to face at some point. My nieces are growing up and asking questions.
Is Santa real?
Looking back, I don't remember officially finding out the truth about Santa. There was never a tragic keyhole-spying incident where I caught my Mom rolling out a new bicycle in the wee hours of Christmas morning. I just went from not knowing the secret to knowing the secret. Pretty painless.
The hitch in my family's whole Christmas mythology was our lack of income. Elaborate lists to Santa never quite came to fruition. But it never seemed to matter. What was waiting for us on Christmas morning was always so perfectly made for each of us, how could Santa not have left it?
I really didn't want those bullshit plastic toys that were advertised to vomitous excess the closer we got to Christmas. I played Mousetrap later on in life and it sucked. I'm glad Santa never gave it to me. What made all those toys look really cool was the surrounding hype: the trees and rushing rivers that played background to that Lego car. The Lego car all by itself was shockingly paltry. I really wanted those shoe roller-skates. Santa knew. Santa knew Mousetrap sucked just as much as I did.
As the years went by, our income slipped still more. We were living in La Verne, California, while my Mom attended law school. She was working part-time in the law library and raising me and my sister on her own. There was no extra money. Christmas was a luxury we just weren't going to be able to afford. During those years my belief in Santa ebbed and flowed each day I dared to hope for something under the tree, knowing full well that we had no money. Logic was ruling my 11-year-old mind. Hope and faith were being badgered into a corner.
A couple of days before Christmas, my mom received $60 in the mail.
No return address.
No explanation.
No one to thank.
This money allowed my Mom...well, allowed us to have Christmas. And I remember thinking it was odd that Santa sent us money in the mail like a far-off grandmother. It defied logic. That little voice in my head that told me that Santa couldn't find the poor kids was finally told to shut up. He had found us.
And now, as I watch my sister and brother-in-law deal with the unenviable position of having to break the news to my eldest niece that there is no Santa, I can't help but think of that $60. We never found out who sent it and I know now that it probably wasn't Santa Claus. Or was it? I mean, isn't that what this season is all about? Finding the Santa Claus inside each one of us? Could it be that he exists after all? That it's you and you and you and you and me?
The amount has gone up, but my mom still gives money anonymously to someone in need every year around Christmas.
A way of remembering. A way of saying thank you.
A way of quieting that voice that tells us not to believe.