I Saw Him With My Own Sad Eyes

I must have been older than seven, because it happened after we’d moved to my grandparents’ house. Probably eight.

The girls at school told me that if Santa Claus sees you, you won’t get any presents, not from him in any case. His whole M.O. was to zip around the world sight unseen, and he hated it if his plans were foiled. They also told me the legend of naughty versus nice. Both of those wrinkles to the story hadn’t been imparted to me at home, and I was interested. I felt in the clear on the naughty and nice score, as I was ardently religious and intensely concerned with kindness and turning the other cheek, but I was terrified about seeing Santa. I wished I’d never heard about it. On Christmas Eve, I had a nervous stomach all day. The king swinging the frankincense censor at the childrens’ 4 o’ clock service always made me dizzy, but this time I thought I’d faint. I couldn’t enjoy supper or my siblings’ excitement. It was traditional in our house on Christmas Eve that someone have an accident that necessitated trip to the emergency room or a retrimming of the tree after cats pulled it down, so that probably happened, but those events blur together. I do remember finally being in bed in my grandmother’s room. She had two very old twin beds with pineapple finials.

I was alone. The curtains were open. It began to snow.

I wouldn’t sleep. I had to stay awake to make sure my eyes were shut as I listened for the telltale noise on the roof. In spite of my vigilance, my eyes opened occasionally; snow was piling up on the tree branches. The house was completely quiet. I wanted to go into one of the other bedrooms but they were way down the hall. Where was my grandmother? I don’t know. Still downstairs, setting the presents under the tree? Or in Florida for the winter? No, not so soon. She may have been in the other bed, and it is only my feeling that I was completely alone. Cut off from my parents. My father nearly a mile away in our real house. My mother in the bedroom with the red toile wallpaper. Or not. Not with me is all I know.

What if I did see him and he me and I had to pay the consequence of not getting any presents? My religious self assured me that it wasn’t important, that Christmas was about rebirth, hope, caring for the poor. I particularly responded to the image of the shepherds sensing a holy event and bringing their sheep in closer to the little stable in Bethlehem. I thought about that, as I lay in bed. How did they know that the baby would be Jesus, and how did they not talk themselves out of following their intuition—the star? It was a very interesting story and I still haven’t tired of it. (Thank you, Saint Luke.) Lots to envision and contemplate. The real Christmas story, not Santa Claus, I told myself. Yet I shivered with fear.

The odd thing was, I already knew there was no Santa Claus, at least not one that came to the house. When we were still living at the Rose Lane house—our real house—we had beautiful Christmases with a tree decorated with that heavy tinsel that turned out to be poisonous and glass bulbs in cunning shapes that my mother loved, wrapping and unwrapping them carefully. It always snowed, and Christmas Eve was about navigating to church in the snow, having a light supper, shaking the boxes under the tree making guesses about what was inside, reading The Night Before Christmas, and listening to the radio reports of Santa sightings. My father was usually at the hospital caring for his patients, but one Christmas Eve he was at home, “loafing” with us, handsomely dressed but open to fun. He stood by the stereo console and I lay below him to listen to the Santa report. It occurred to me that I was listening to a story. I looked up at him and said, “there’s no such thing as Santa, is there?” He looked back at me and said, “no, there is not.”

So why was I so afraid of seeing a sight I knew wasn’t real?

And then I saw him.

He appeared at the window next to the bed, his hand cupped over his brow, looking in and around the room. I squeezed my eyes as tight as I could and prayed he hadn’t seen them open. When I looked again, he was gone. It had happened though. I still think it did.

But what happened, is the question?

I would wake up in the morning in a house I knew well, but it wasn’t my real house. All the presents would be there, nothing withheld, but I would be separated from my father and find it difficult to enjoy myself knowing he was waking up in the other house alone with a tree and presents but no children, not until a visit later in the day. When I saw him I wouldn’t tell him about seeing Santa, or maybe I would, depending on how happy he seemed. I would get through Christmas.

Then I would look forward to getting back to school and being around friends who would hear me out about my Santa sighting, nod their heads and then move on to the next recounting. My parents were the first to divorce and I couldn’t really talk about that—I barely understood it. I would tell about Santa, having good news of my own to deliver—I saw him and wasn’t penalized for it. I hoped not to be penalized for my story, either, and to feel safe in the telling. So much of stability is based on tolerance, not consensus. Who would tolerate my version, even if they didn’t believe it?

These days, I am sifting through so many instagram posts, so many articles, so many declamations, searching for a tolerant heart.

Merry Christmas to all who tolerate it.