One Christmas was so much like another in our sea-town, the
illusion of North Poles and flying sleighs supported by faux-snow
of white spun glass, a show worthy of nearby Tinseltown.
But in our imaginations it was real enough, even if it could not
be balled up, rolled into a snowman or sledded upon.
One Christmas was so much like another in our sea-town, the illusion of North Poles and flying sleighs supported by faux-snow of white spun glass, a show worthy of nearby Tinseltown.
But in our imaginations it was real enough, even if it could not be balled up, rolled into a snowman or sledded upon.
One darkening Christmas eve afternoon, Tim Hoctor and I hid in his garden, banditos poised to rob the passing stagecoach. Skateboards tucked under our arms, we waited for dusk, when the cars snaked slowly up the street, children’s faces crowded at open windows gawking in open-mouthed wonder at the brightly lit crèches (guaranteed to keep baby Jesus awake), slowly waving Santas and tinsel-draped palm trees of our Candy Cane Lane.
Our skateboards were nothing you’d find under a tree, but something we made from a plank of wood and our sisters’ busted skates. As cars lumbered by, we snuck up behind them and, crouching low, stole a tow.
Cars had bumpers then, chromed and gleaming, that you could hold – and we did, for dear life, as distracted drivers herky-jerked their way up the street, pointing out for their kids Rudolph’s flashing nose, or an elf clinging, also for dear life, to Santa’s soaring sleigh.
Then, as dinner approached, I skated home to be bundled into the car for the trip to Grandma’s and the uncles.
There were always uncles at Christmas, tobacco-stained, cribbage-playing uncles, who gave you socks and other mostly useless presents, and snoozed in stuffed chairs. They brought with them aunts, some kindly, who offered tea and things to read, and others stern, who could produce a wire brush like a rabbit from a hat and threaten to
scrub you for the crime of being a rambunctious boy.
Among these uncles there was always one, happy, ruddy-cheeked and conspiratorial, who drank a little (when the aunts weren’t looking) and gave you candy cigarettes – the training wheels of sin. In our family that was Tuffy.
Tuffy was an honest-to-goodness gold miner, who lived in Columbia and got his letters at post office box number 49. He was also, according to the aunts, a scoundrel, which meant that, unlike other uncles, he’d lived an interesting life.
At Christmas time Tuffy was as jolly as St. Nick, and soon after we arrived that night Santa ho-hoed his way into Grandma’s living room ever so briefly. As we watched, dumbstruck, he exited as quickly as he had come, casting presents and candy, including those cigarettes, in his wake.
Moments later a gaggle of grandkids, most at the age of unshakable belief, stood on the porch, scanning the sky for his sleigh.
“Look!” the adults cried. “There. Can you see? There!”
“I see him!” said my sister Rebecca, triumphantly. And then they all looked at me, whimpering, disconsolate, because I alone could not see what everyone else saw. To say otherwise would have been a lie.
While I could not lie, I could invent. Later, I lay in my own bed, wanting desperately to replace the miracle that had escaped my sight earlier.
Out the window in my own back yard, a worn dirt patch in our lawn glowed so bright under the blazing full moon, that I – recalling the glittering, perfect white on the lawns of Candy Cane Lane – convinced myself it had snowed under my window, and nowhere else. Content, I slept.
Sometime during the night, the sleigh I had not seen touched down on the snow that had fallen from my imagination. The cookies were eaten, the milk was drunk, and next to our tree a gleaming blue and chrome bike leaned jauntily on its kickstand. I was so excited, I hardly noticed that the snow in our backyard was gone.
Minutes later I was speeding down Candy Cane Lane, past Rudolph, his nose dimmed in the light of Christmas morning, past Santa’s stilled wave, past baby Jesus. Had he finally gotten to sleep, I wondered, and yet awakened to no toys?
Up and down I went, needing no help from the slow-poke cars, as the street came alive with other children and new toys – most soon to be broken or forgotten. But not the wheels. Bikes meant freedom, and freedom meant growing up, and I didn’t know it then, but the end was near for Santa.
And yet I still wish I’d seen him in the sky that night.
