Here’s a heartwarming story about the rotten kids on the playground. When I was in third grade -maybe eight or so – I was sitting with my friends on the play ground at school on a blustery December day. We were discussing important issues of the day – what Star Trek re-run would be on this afternoon, Planet of the Apes, could the Six Million Dollar Man BE more awesome, and Christmas. A small herd of mewling, weeping first-graders ran by, pursued by savage, laughing fifth- and sixth-graders. First-graders are natural playground prey animals, and we tried to ignore this whole scene, lest the big kids turn their savagery on us. Unfortunately, one of the kids – a loutish brute who lived down the street from me – detached himself from the pack and came over to us.
“Hey, jerks,” Brute sneered. We shifted uncomfortably. Within a few months, he would make the transition to full-blown bullyhood and launch a horrific reign of terror that lasted until Socially Awkward Foreign Kid experienced a growth spurt and beat the crap out of him. “What are you babies doing?”
“Oh, you know, talking about Christmas and Six Million Dollar Man and stuff,” my friend Mike replied. My other friend, Todd, averted his eyes. Socially Awkward Foreign Kid just sort of sat there.
Brute’s eyes narrowed. “You babies don’t still believe in Santa, do you?” He gestured at the big kids tormenting the blubbery, snot-covered six-year-olds. “Like them?” His monstrous associates were telling first-graders there was no Santa, just to watch them cry. We were shocked, first at this cruelty, and second, because the whole Santa Question was something we had all been avoiding. “THERE IS NO SANTA!” he yelled at us, like Hitler shouting rude things about Czechoslovakia at Neville Chamberlain, and he laughed; again like Hitler laughing at Neville Chamberlain. Mike and Todd gasped. Socially Awkward Foreign Kid shrugged indifferently. He had never believed in
Santa Claus, and indeed had a bafflingly incomprehensible belief system that none of us ever figured out. Years later he would get a near-perfect score on the SAT and go to MIT. Mike was near tears.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “There’s too much evidence. The presents! There’s pictures of him every where. Songs! He can’t be made up.”
“Well, he is! The Santas in the mall, they’re fake!”
We were unfazed by this. It was generally accepted that mall Santas were helpers, agents, not Santa himself; in much the same way that Adam West was not really Batman. Even six-year-olds knew this. “We know that,” I said. “What about the presents?”
“Oh, that’s your parents. The parents are all in on it, and your Mom is the one that does all that stuff.” He lived with his mom and his delinquent brother. His father was rumored to be in prison, or a member of a dangerous biker gang, although, in retrospect, his parents were probably just divorced.
“That’s crazy,” I replied. Mike and Todd nodded and glared at him. “What about the cookies?” You leave out cookies, Santa eats them. Christmas morning, empty plate – proof!
“Your mom eats the cookies! It’s the parents! They’re all in on it” He lowered his voice. “It’s a CONSPIRACY!”
I shook my head. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. A parent conspiracy? My mom doesn’t even KNOW your Mom!” A global conspiracy involving all of Earth’s parents? The entire adult population promulgating an enormous scam? And for what? It was a ridiculously complicated explanation. A single supernatural being was so much more logical.
“Hey,” Todd asked, “what about Baby Jesus? Is that part true, or did parents make that up, too?”
Brute recoiled.”Of course that part’s true. What the hell’s wrong with you? Gah.” That made even less sense. If EVERYTHING at Christmas was some sort of adult scam, that would at least have a kind of logical consistency. Adults could be inscrutable. But the supernatural being who left tangible evidence of his presence was fake, while the evidence-free supernatural being was actually real? That was crazy talk.
Recess ended, and I mulled over the Brute’s disturbing disclosure. I decided I would ask my mom. So, that evening, as casually as I could, I asked, “Mom? Is there really a Santa Claus?” Her answer made my blood run cold. She said a lot of stuff about belief, and spirit of this and that, and blah blah lives in your heart blah blah, and none of it remotely meant “yes.” The obfuscating cloud of blah blah was very alarming.
“Ok,” I said. “What about Baby Jesus? Is he fake, too?” I expected a more-or-less similar answer, blah blah lives in your heart, and so forth. Instead, my mother FREAKED OUT. “Of course JESUS is real! MY GOD where DID you hear those things!” I slunk off to my bedroom. It was bad enough to live in a universe with no Santa. It was even worse to live in a universe where the Brute was actually right about stuff.
Ok, so that’s more depressing than heartwarming. I got a bike for Christmas, and so did Todd, if that makes it better. Sure, we had to live in a stranger, darker universe, but at least we got to enter it on cool new bikes.
For more terrifying flaming Santa pictures, go here!
