The Santa Close One

As a de facto atheist, I find some general shame in using the word "spirit."  But I believe in the spirit of Christmas.  Friends doing favors they wouldn't usually, strangers exchanging good-hearted and genuine well wishes for each other, the thrill of stumbling on that perfect gift for your brother, and the stress of your extended family griping about your refusal of their invitation to spend the holiday with them but neglecting to realize your mom's side of the family embraces the idea of you bringing your boyfriend along, and maybe that's why, maybe you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself, and I hope conversations at Christmas dinner are neither interesting nor sophisticated, owing greatly to my absence.¹

But I'm not here to get personal.  Let's talk Santa.  Even though Santa stands for everything I hate about Christmas (and mind you, my hatred of the commercialization of Xmas is neither vapid nor pompous—I think it's reasonable to say that pepper spraying your consumer competition is taking Xmas greed a bit too far), the guy was always good to me.  He got me an N64 that time I really needed one, and that Bat Cave action figure set was a blast for years, even though it was my brother's.  Santa was not, however, good to my new friend Harry. Not at all.

Harry is eight-ish years old and the son of the kitchen manager at the restaurant where I'm a delivery driver.  I met him for the first time yesterday after getting to work late and missing out on some hot cocoa the general manager had prepared for everyone.  A managerial meeting was underway outside, so Harry and I were the only two in the restaurant.

"You got a favorite Christmas song?" I asked him as "Feliz Navidad" played on the Pandora Christmas station.

"No," he said, and continued to write his sentences.

"What about a favorite regular song?" I asked.

Again, "No."

He then stopped doing his homework and took from his pocket a sheet of paper that had been folded into a square some way that the corners were tucked back in, so it wouldn't unfold.  He then tried to spin it on the tiled bar.  It was a top.  It didn't spin.

"Can you make this work?" he asked me.  I didn't know anything about paper tops really.  I said he should probably be doing his homework, or his mother would be angry.  He was too upset to do his homework, he explained, because one of the managers had spilled hot cocoa all over his first attempt and he'd have to start it all over on a new sheet.  I told him I knew how to make a fortune teller, and maybe that would be just as fun.

He didn't know what a fortune teller was.  And then I got that irrational paranoid feeling you get, you know the one where you just started this new job and you don't know anybody there, and you're about to teach one of your co-worker's kids about paper fortune tellers, but you're acutely aware of the possibility that the family is a fundamentally and vehemently Baptist one that holds paper fortune tellers as instruments of Satanic worship?  But you also don't want to say something like, "This is just for fun, and fortune telling isn't real," because what if the family is new-agey or if Great Aunt Lyla made her fortune telling fortunes or something?  So when writing the possible fortunes down I tried to stay ultra light on the "predicting" aspect and instead wrote "Have a nice day," "You rock," "Study hard," and "Santa's watching."

Boy, did I fuck up on that last one.

"Pick a number," I said.  The choices showing were 1, 2, 3, and 4.

"19," he said.

"No, one of the ones here."

"10."  Come on, do kids not know numbers at age 8?

"1, 2, 3, or 4."

"Um, 4."  And I do the fortune telling motion thing.

Now his choices are 5, 6, 9, and 10.

"4 again," he said.

"It doesn't work that way, stupid kid!" I said.  I didn't really say that, but wouldn't that have been so mean?  And funny later?  He picked 10, and then he picked 12.  And behind door 12 was "Santa's watching."

He seemed confused.  Consequently, I became confused.  "What's wrong?" I asked him.  He had something to say, but was obviously nervous to say it, like he was about to hurt my feelings with whatever it was.  He hopped off the stool and came around to the side of the bar that I was on, motioning for me to come down to his level so he could whisper to me.

"My mom said," he started.  "Well, last year, Santa didn't bring me presents or eat the cookies I left for him."

"Oh," I said.  Shit.

"Well, and last year when I was in kindergarten I woke up Christmas morning and my mom said she bought all my Christmas presents and that I had to eat all the cookies."  My confusion grew... it seemed as though the kid still believed in Santa Claus but for some reason he understood that last year of all years, Santa took a break.  And it couldn't have been a financial issue, because the kid still got presents.  And what I got next was no answer, but instead the catalyst for quite a few more questions.  "She said it was because Santa died."

I'm sorry.  Excuse me?

"Oh!" Not gonna lie, I felt a little trapped.  "Yeah, I heard about that, isn't that awful?"  Isn't it awful to tell a kid that Santa died rather than never existed?  Myself, I took it pretty hard when I found out about Santa.  Cried and whatnot.  But I cannot imagine how distraught I would've been if I heard he died.  He was like my third grandpa.

"If you heard about it, why did you write that Santa's watching?"

Well, I thought.  What do I say now?  Something vague like his spirit is still around and I'm sure presents will continue to be given even if mothers and fathers have to take on the burden?  Or something as simple as "I forgot?"  There should be one single story that every person is instructed to go by whenever he or she is told the truth about Santa.  When parents go around telling their kids Santa died and shit, that's asking for a bit of trauma down the road.  Just a little.

I think I've proven myself fairly capable of avoiding discomfort.  I'd say that's one of my most prized and most utilized skills.  Call me an escapist.  I don't care.  Kids are the easiest people to distract, and I was not about to talk death of Santa with this one.

So I went with, "Hey, is that a lizard?!"

---

¹  Because it is most likely true that Dennis would not be welcome at my Dad's side's festivities, and because I am truly somewhat on the estranged end of things, but also because I do not actually harbor any resentment towards the Armatos, and because I am Facebook friends with a sizable majority of them, I'd like to establish that I am, in the referred paragraph, exaggerating for effect. Thank you.