Six-year-old Santa

Forty-two years ago this morning, I woke up to a Christmas tree that hovered over a pile of presents—and I knew from where the presents came.

That was the Christmas that I learned who Santa Claus was.

Christmas Eve, dad pulled me and my sister aside. I was six. He had something to tell us, in the darkness of the living room lit up my little more than Christmas tree lights and ambient rays from the kitchen.

Of course, there were no presents under the tree, yet. Of course, we were waiting with anxious excitement at what was going to happen that evening. Dad had something important to say. You can imagine that he knew the challenge of getting a six-year-old to pay attention when they are waiting for Santa.

He got down to my eye level. I think he placed his hands on my shoulders and gave the most earnest look, a look coming from an exceptionally earnest man.

Then, he told me: that Santa Claus was made up, a concept—that Santa was really him and mom, and grandma and grandpa. That is where the presents came from. I don't know that I said much. I guess that I nodded as he spoke, taking in the deep revelation.

He said that Christmas was something he and mom did, gave to us because of how much joy they received from seeing us open the presents each Christmas morning. He said that there was no way that he was going to let some strange man walk into the house at middle of the night, no matter what he has with him—that if an unknown man walked into his family's house, that man would have daddy to deal with.

I think I might have uttered something about how it made more sense then the fat red-suited guy story. I was relieved on several counts. First, the idea that we were visited in the middle of the night was a bit scary. Second, our chimney let to a fiery furnace, not a fireplace like all of the popular fairy tale depictions. Third, it meant that I didn't have to hold up my end of a farce.

I was also a bit proud. It was a sign that my parents had taken one of the first steps showing respect to me as a person who was growing into the real world. It was if he was saying, you are ready for this information. I was.

It was also important because it allowed him to reinforce the important story of Christmas, that what it is meant to be and is important to our family because it is the day on which we celebrate the birth and coming of Jesus, something that continually gets lost in what most of of spend our Christmas on.

There are as many ways in which parents I know do this, as many ways as there are parents. One friend said something to her 11-year-old son just this year, to which he responded that he had pretty much figured it out, and then with what I imagine was a sly and loving grin, that he didn't let on because he figured that he would get more presents if he played along. (I think this is one of the great pre-teen conspiracies.)

Another said that she never wanted to tell her kids, not because she wanted her kids so much to believe in Santa as she wanted them to believe in the possibilities and capacity of magic in the world.

Her statement made me think: is Santa an idea, belief or hope in magic? I don't know. I like to think that it is something other than a miracle like we speak of when we talk about Jesus. But the concept, at its origin if not in recent execution, comes out of the same kind of hope and love: one of giving and providing, like that of Jesus feeding the multitude with meager loaves and fishes.

There seem to be a couple of popular ways to view the feeding of the crowd that day. Some will say that Jesus made the food multiply with his superhuman touch, making much out of little with the wave of his hand. Others believe that the miracle was the phenomenon of the masses being moved to share, that Jesus compelled a kind of love not just from himself for the hungry but that he infused love in many to feed the many, share what they had and brought it to the gathering—hungry and those of means, together.

So, is the magic of Santa that there is a guy who rides in a sleigh around the world in one night leaving gifts for children, good ones (ones whose parents can afford and want them to have everything they ask for) and not as good ones (whose parents are not of such great means or who are just rotten beings and get coal in their stocking)? Or is the magic that the idea of Santa makes us want to give to our children and people we love?

What moves us? What do we believe? What is the meaning of Christmas? Do you celebrate Christmas? What is your favorite holiday, and why?

That Christmas 42 years ago was my favorite. That morning, my sister and I crept down the stairs with the same anticipation, excitement and wonder as we did before we knew the secret. Like all the years before, we slowly made our way down the stairs after asking mom and dad if it was okay for us to go look and instead of running back upstairs to our sleepy parents who had spent the night wrapping and assembling and yelling in their sleepy ears, “Mommy, daddy, come look at what Santa brought us,” we knew that they already knew and that we just needed to wait a little while so that they could find the camera before we tore through the wrapping paper.

We were big kids, on that day, and in years to come, we would have the fun of helping mom and dad make a Santa Claus Christmas for our younger siblings. We got to be Santa, just like mom and dad.

COMMENTS CAN BE LEFT AT http://theclarencewhiteblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/25/six-year-old-santa/

frozen in/out of love

Gray day

hiding behind the brown

of a winter

i never lived

i feel frozen ground

remember how

i took for granted green

soft, supple blades

recalling that i did not

take my shoes off

in the warmer day

sun-filled, asking me to

run my toes through its hair

like only a lover would allow

and to lay down with it

another invitation i let pass

and now its caress has

grown cold and hard

mocking me naked

its blanket of snow cast aside

so late in this season

with trees who

have not dropped their leaves

in a last gasp of vanity

tomorrow, in may's solar rays

another boy

will play, walk and love

run his toes through the grass

while mine hide safe

in steady shoes

that will not tell the secret colors

of spring's thaw

Sun Worship

Sitting at my computer, the sun's ray are creeping closer as it sweeps across the southern sky of our North American Winter. Soon, it will obscure the view on the screen. Too much light cast on light and it will wash out what I need to see, illuminate. I will be helpless. Why?

They tell us not to look directly at the sun. They tell us that if we gaze up at the eclipse, we will go blind. No one dare look upon it's royalty, it's deity without suffering the consequences of such blaspheme.

So, then, can we see anything? Or is it like two sources of light, two suns send us into a funky orbit, never quite knowing which way we will be tugged next? Is this why God only wants us to have the One?

But I don't have to worry about it, today. I am warm, with the sun piercing through the window that braces me from the cold of this high winter day. The day has been made mercifully short and will keep me from too many temptations to attempt too much knowledge that might toss me out of this Eden.

A Child’s Thanksgiving Leftovers

My friend Judith said today that she wondered what other people's attitude was about Thanksgiving leftovers. I know what my father thinks.

Other than the red beans and rice that were a staple of his childhood and that my mother still cooks for him and her children and a grandson who has the greatest affinity for them, the one thing that dad could eat every day is leftover Thanksgiving turkey.

There was a time when I was not sure if this affinity was one of convenience, necessity or of a favorite taste on the pallet and stomach. My mother assures me that it is a favorite. My introduction to this affinity made it not so clear.

A day or two after the Thanksgiving when I was four and my sister was three, we found ourselves, for several days, in a one-parent house. Mom was in the hospital. Dad was left alone to take care of us. Lucky for him, he had what was left of a 24-pound turkey and other fixings that were never going to be consumed by two people and two little kids.

So, the first day, we had Thanksgiving leftovers. Easy enough. They second day? We had Thanksgiving leftovers. The third day, dad served Thanksgiving leftovers. It was either on that day or the next that my father's two lovely children sat at the dinner table, not moving a muscle, not lifting a fork and not budging an inch in spite of dad's urging us to eat.

Dad was not a clean-the-plate kind of person, but it was important that his kids get nourishment, and excuse from the table was did not come unless enough of the right nutrients made their way into our bodies, enough protein, enough green, yellow or orange vegetable and enough to make his kids healthy. So, it must have been some kind of pity, mercy or grace with which he viewed his children's sad faces, tired of turkey, tired of missing mom, and too tired to know we were hungry.

I suppose dad was tired, too. He did a good job in mom's absence. We were well cared for and generally were in good spirits in spite of knowing mom was not there. We did miss her. I can only imagine his sadness, as he relented and packed us up to go to McDonald's. Sadness for his kids, who endured without mom, without something new to eat. Sadness that his lovely bride was in the hospital. Sad from fatigue.

It was many years before we know why mom went to the hospital. That holiday weekend, she almost lost the pregnancy that would in months become my brother Michael. I am still amazed at how my parents handled this episode. I remember being woken up early in the morning. Mom stood in the kitchen. I don't remember much except that they told us that mommy had to go to the hospital—right now. I remember mom holding herself up by the kitchen counter on one side and dad's strong arms on her other.

I remember that during one of the most frightening events a couple can go through, my parents said that everything was going to be alright, that mommy was going to be fine, but they also instilled in their children, with some kind of calm spirit, that everything was going to be alright. We were not afraid. Even for the trip to the hospital, we were well cared for.

Mom and dad did this with such skill, care and love. Kind of like today's President, there was no drama—at least not for us kids.

Months later, mom and dad felt confident enough to talk to us about having a baby brother or sister. We still wondered where this baby was going to come from, where would we get it. I think at one point, I asked if we went to a baby store to pick it out. And that May, we had a baby brother. We were kids. And four days of Thanksgiving leftovers was a small price for my sister and I to pay for him. It was a great reward for what my mother endured and the character, faith and enough judgment to know when to let the kids have McDonald's that pulled us through.

I do remember sitting speechless at the dinner table that November. But I can only imagine what was going through dad's head and what was in his heart that evening as we opened the wrapped hamburgers and placed the french fries in the messy pools of ketchup three- and four-year-olds make. I have sat at McDonald's, being a dad in speechless moments, hoping the hamburgers and play room would sufficiently mask hints of sadness on the face of my son's dad. I wonder if I have been so good at freeing my son of such burdens of the grown-up.

This year, I still have some leftovers from Thanksgiving in my ice box. I will have to finish them soon, frozen or not. They are quite good. Not just turkey. New Orleans gumbo. Mom makes it every holiday season. But I still know when it's time to eat out. At least I think I do.

If you have any leftovers stories, I'd be glad to hear them. Share them here, if you like. Or any holiday story. Especially the Thanksgiving ones. Good or bad. Funny or not. I don't want to forget.

Counting the Places at the Thanksgiving Table

November 25, 2011

.It is one’s duty to be thankful at this time of year. I see and hear so many statements of thanks. Enough to create more than just a little dissonance when I see them pasted next to pictures of our real world. Still, maybe today’s lesson is that thanks is not the antithesis of those sometimes sad pictures. Hard days sometimes accentuate those things.

This Thanksgiving Day was, like many others, was spent at my parents’ house. Mom and dad have made a good home, always a good place to be. It is a good place to visit, for me. It has proven to be a great place for others whom we have invited over the years and my parents are people who I love to show off.

This Thanksgiving morning, my son and I rode up to mom and dad’s, a happy escape from a hard week. It was a quite drive, this time with no radio and only a book in my son’s lap, leaving his hand-held video games unlit beside him. The silence let in a lot of thoughts from the previous days, things I guess I needed to talk about and may tell you later—and some that I will not, but all things that I need to process. (Maybe some of today’s stories will make enough sense and find the right emotional space to retell, and maybe, with time, wisdom will tell me that there is no story.) Apart from the half hour slowdown as we left the outer ring suburbs, the speed of our trek let my thoughts disappear in the slipstream and vaporize on the freeway.

Grandma was so excited to see her grandson, the first of three grandchildren to arrive, she almost forgot to greet me, her first of four children. The other grandchildren would follow, with their parents. What was different this year, is that there were no friends, no neighbors, and no strays who mom and dad so kindly invite into their home on a day that should be shared.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It is a holiday where everyone is supposed to be welcome without having to fake obligation to a particular religious perspective, and a time when people can just get together to be with each other around a special meal. And be reminded why everyone who joins us around that table is special. No obligation to buy the right gift or spend money we need but don’t have on things we don’t have or need and no code besides a heightened idea of how we should treat and enjoy people we know well or met for the first time.

What is missing is more than just the chance to show off mom and dad—two people who are more than worth showing off; more than the stories we get to retell to guests who have missed the previous 40 Thanksgivings at our house, but have to be shared, especially the ones that embarrass one of us.
This year, there were few stories. This is the first time in a couple of years that we’ve been guestless, and as much as I love my family, my siblings, my nieces, my parents and my son, this year’s empty places at the table left an empty place in my heart and a lots opportunity to share the a great spirit with which I was raised with people who are special by their being there.
I am thankful, without grudge, for the blessing of having this place, this home to call my own and from time to time to give to people I love and people who need to receive the love that lives at mom and dad’s. Driving home, the freeway, I am left again with my thoughts, including all the reasons why there were no Happy Thanksgiving visitors, but, also why and how I am blessed to have the place share.
It has been a hard week and I know I have a hard week to come. And, yes, I am still thankful.

Post-Halloween Modern: A Poem by Sidney Carlson White

What lies at the bottom of the Halloween bag?
Monsters, ghouls, vampires, ghosts perhaps?
The forlorn wrapper of a Snickers bar?
The chocolaty smell of the scrumptious?

Trick-or-Treat, Trick-or-Treat
Effervescent gleam, candy scream
House to house, they run and skip
The Candy beckons with chocolate dreams

Which house is more finely dressed
Decor combat, the new game
Pumpkins and lights hold court here
Flickering glow in the darkness

–Sidney Carlson White

The Only Respect He Will Ever Get

Don’t complain
When you see him
Looking fierce
Baggy pants
Not the man
Who you want to even
Sell you your french fries.
Because to make you cross
To the other side of the street
At the mere sight of him
Is the only respect
He will ever get.