The Truth about Santa Claus

“Life, too, is like that. You live it forward, but you understand it backward.”  Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

I’ve heard many people say that one of the greatest benefits of aging is the accumulated experience.  Experience, though, is a double-edged sword.  We can accumulate bad experiences just as much as good experiences. As I think about it, it’s not the “experience” that we accumulate, but the memory of the experience.  And we are the ones who choose how to remember it

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At my age I have accumulated much experience and  have vivid memories of those experiences.  Though most of my memories are good and healthy and pleasant, some of them are not.  Some of the experiences though that happened decades ago are fresh in my memory. And the problem with that is although I have forgiven myself for any grief I may have caused, I still remember doing what I did and saying what I said. How do I ever get ahead of that?

From 1973 through 1976 I was a music student at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Simultaneous with those studies I was the part-time Minister of Music and Youth at a church in Jasper.  Jasper was about 50 miles northwest of Birmingham up Highway 78. I made that hour drive two, sometimes three or four times a week. Although it was both time-consuming and demanding, I enjoyed that job very much.  Part of my responsibility during the worship service was to sing a solo before the sermon. I don’t remember if it was required or that I just expected it of myself.  Either way, I sang a solo every Sunday morning.  When the dean of my music school sang a solo, he always told a short story; so I did the same.  For reasons that failed me then and fail me now, in front of 250 men, women, boys and girls of all ages, I told the story of the Christmas when I found out for sure there was no Santa Claus. How is it that now, forty three years later, I’m still thinking about it?  And it still embarrasses me if I let it. I just don't let it. 

The Christmases of my childhood were magical.  Members of four families gathered on Christmas Eve at my maternal grandmother’s house in Enterprise.  We ate cake, cookies and boiled custard. My great aunt accompanied carols. My aunt showed movies on her eight millimeter projector for the eight cousins.  About twenty of us enjoyed a grand time together.  Santa in our tradition not only went to every house in the world that night, but he went twice. At about 10:30 pm he rang a bell to tell boys and girls it was time to go to bed so that he could come back and bring the presents. On one fateful Christmas Eve when I suspected there was no Santa I asked my aunt if I could ring the bell.  To my  consternation and dismay, she retrieved the bell, handed it to me and said, “Just be sure and stay close to the house so that they can’t see you.”  My heart sank. Christmas as I knew it was over.

I found no joy in ringing that bell. Furthermore, as a card-carrying young adult, I got to stay up and help assemble the Santa presents for the young cousins. When I woke up on Christmas day, everything was exactly as we had left it late on Christmas Eve. Santa came, but he was me.

I have absolutely no idea why I chose to tell that story on that fateful December morning at the New Prospect Baptist Church in Jasper, Alabama.  I have consoled myself that most of the children weren’t listening to me or that the parents were able to explain it away.  I also  console myself that those children are now in their 50s and I'm quite sure would have figured it all out by now with or without my story.

So how do we get beyond the pain and embarrassment of these blunders?  We forgive ourselves for sure, but the best way is to learn to laugh. I see these people from time to time and they inevitably recount my story,  I'll see two of them this coming weekend. No doubt they'll bring this up. And as they laugh, I'll laugh. No foul,. No harm. 

That very Santa bell is now in our possession. And on Christmas Eve I get it out, ring and remember. There is so much love and goodness to recall from 309 W. College Avenue, Enterprise, Alabama.  And I laugh and laugh and laugh.