The Real Clause.

You might not want to read this around innocent children or puppies.

I stopped believing in Santa the year I realized there was no way anything larger than a chipmunk could fit down our tiny chimney. My mom attempted to assuage my concerns by suggesting he came through the front door, which actually did not make me feel better at all. Santa coming through the front door= Super Lame. Plus, coming through the door would require he park his sled in our driveway and I had absolutely no evidence that a reindeer, let alone thirteen, had ever set hoof on our property. Raccoon prints- yes. Reindeer prints- no. Either Santa was breaking some pretty major Christmas code exploiting small woodland creatures or somebody else was the one eating the plateful of cookies. Somebody with a key.

Strike two against Clause was the fact that he never brought me what I asked for in the letters I wrote him at school. Granted, he brought me plenty of cool stuff- like mind puzzles and a light-up globe. But the thing was, I specifically asked for tiny fairy dolls with fairy outfits and accessories that existed only in my mind. I figured A) Santa's magic and B) He's got factories of free elf-laborers working overtime for him. He shouldn't have any trouble making it happen. Only every year the dude totally ignored me, almost like he wasn't reading my letters at all. Almost like somebody else was putting the presents under the tree. Somebody who had absolutely no clue what I wanted.

Strike three: Through the years I had encountered more than one fat man claiming to be Santa Clause. And not one of them made me "laugh when I saw him in spite of myself". No, not one Santa inspired anything but emotional discomfort bordering on terror- the exact reaction I have always had to clowns. Never trust a grown man in costume. If these false-Santas were anything like the real thing, I was dead bolting our front door. He could keep his light up globe. He and his army of scavenging raccoons.
My suspicions grew as Christmas morning came and I rushed down the stairs with my little sister, only to be spun around and marched directly back up the stairs by my Grinchy Dad to wait until Mom was ready. And you know Mom took her sweet time; she stretched and yawned and dragged each leg out of bed. Her hair a feathery-nest as she zombied towards the bathroom; My parents must have gotten some amount of satisfaction torturing us every Christmas. They had us right where they wanted us and my dad made sure he captured every second of the occasion on film.

When my mom finally emerged in her bathrobe, hair fluffed and camera-ready, we were given the green light to re-descend the stairs and race to our presents, so long as we were facing the camera. My generally mild little sister flew from nutcracker to toy to whatever else "Santa" had brought us shouting with territorial enthusiasm "That's mine! Look Diana! That's mine!" while I smiled and steeled myself for the probable socks that waited like ticking bombs of disappointment inside their deceptively happy wrappings. Wrapping paper which, I couldn't help noticing, looked incredibly like my mother's wrapping paper.

"Santa has the same wrapping paper we do." I tested conversationally.

"Well, Santa must have been running short on time and wrapped your presents here."

"Mommy! My reindeer won't work." My sister fidgeted with the on-switch of the electronic Rudolph she had claimed.

"Stupid Dang Santa forgot the batteries!" Mom exclaimed in exasperation. That sounded about right for an illiterate Santa who flew raccoons and came through front doors. It also sounded a lot like my Mom. It was then that I knew: I didn't have a Santa Clause magically providing me with gifts. And with this realization came a greater appreciation for what I did have: two parents who loved me. Even as they bumbled their way through Christmas, they did it for me and my sister- to make the holiday special for us. I also had a plethora of socks.

I continued humoring them for several years, all the while planning how to break the news. I would get up in the middle of the night Christmas Eve, add a few presents of my own, leaving hoof prints all over the driveway effectively blowing their minds. But I was nine and knew I couldn't pull it off convincingly so I settled on telling my little sister who didn't take it as well as I had.

"No Diana YOU'RE WRONG! Mom and Dad would never LIE to us!"

Yes they would. Merry Christmas!

Rudolph Has Low Self-Esteem.

So I turned that magical age of thirty two months ago and felt nothing. I don't know what I was expecting. Something magical apparently. But that is a post for another day. I am now thirty, and like most North- American children of the eighties, I grew up watching a somewhat disturbing stop-motion-animation Christmas movie called Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And while I cannot place total blame for my elementary-school anxiety on the sloping shoulders of that red nosed freak and his effeminate elf-friend, they played a festive part in my neurosis.

Imagine misfit me, staring wide-eyed through my crooked bangs, as Rudolph grovels for the acceptance of his reindeer peers in that embarrassingly nasal voice. "Why am I such a misfit?" He sings pathetically to himself after publicly humiliating his dad by losing control of his red and ominously humming nose. I don't know, Rudolph. Maybe you should stop hanging around with that cougar-doe who claims to be your age, but is clearly played by a fully-mature woman. Because you know, that isn't doing anything for your emotional health. Nor is the elf with the coiffe. The dude is performing dental work on dolls. That isn't misfit. That's messed up. As the kid who never fit in, I did not like the way I was being represented. Not by that whiny Rudolph. Not by that outrageously annoying elf. Not by the Island of Handicapped Toys. Rather than feeling the intended theme of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: Its OK to be you! I recoiled in self-realization: It is definitely NOT OK to be me. Better to conform than be abominable snow man fodder. I was certain of one thing- I didn't want to end up like Rudolph, exploited by the very people who initially rejected me. Indebted to a dentist. A shell of a reindeer. No.

It was years before I could enjoy stop-motion animation again. And though in many ways I remain the misfit I always was, I am happy to report that my childhood fear of being in poor company was as ridiculous as Aaron Neville singing O Holy Night. Take my word for it. Excepting whiny red-nosed types, misfits are fabulous company.