Mom stuck her head in the rec-room
during the afternoon of Christmas Eve in the early ‘60s and announced, “You
boys need to shut off that TV and put on your coats. We’re going to take your
baby sister to see her godmother who is in an old folk’s home. This will be our Christmas present to her. When we get back, your dad should be home from
the office party, and your brother will be home from his friend’s house.”
 |
| SANTA IN THE SNOW |
Christmas Eve and the TV Santa
memoir
by
Greg Larson
My younger brother, Timmy, and I looked
at each other in panic. We had just
settled in with the couch pillows on the tile floor and had cozied up to the
black and white television set. The Looney Tune cartoons were on, and it would soon be time for our
favorite afternoon show with Santa on KAKE-TV, channel ten.
“But Mom,” I replied, “It’s Christmas Eve. We’ll miss the most important show of the
year. Santa Claus and KAKE-man are going
to load the sleigh and they’ll be taking off at the end of the show to fly
around the world.”
At the age of twelve, I was tired of
pretending to believe in Santa. He was
nothing more than a big benevolent clown who enjoyed Coca-cola . . .but the
Santa and KAKE-man show was tradition.
Besides, I didn’t want to see Timmy’s Christmas Eve get spoiled. I couldn’t believe it. This was like shutting off a World Series
game to go to the grocery store.
Timmy whimpered but it did no good. Mom was on a mission. Nothing was going to stop her from parading us
and our eight-month-old baby sister in front of her old friend. She pulled our red parkas out of the closet
and handed them to us in the living room while she tucked little Amy Jo into
the baby carrier.
I looked at the white-flocked Douglas
fir full of glass ornaments, and tried to visualize Christmas morning. Dad always turned on the flood lights
attached to the 8mm movie camera, and we had to wipe the sleep out of our eyes
and squint to see what Santa brought us. I pictured a fantasyland of electric trains
and toy trucks. This day came just once
a year. It had better be good.
Mom loaded us into the baby-blue
Plymouth and began the drive to the other side of the city. Other than an occasional Christmas tree lot
and some decorations in a few store windows, it seemed just like another gray
winter day . . . really gray.
Our little sister’s godmother was someone Mom had
met and admired in Mother’s Club. In fact, Mom had named Amy Jo after the
elderly Amy. I had no clue what all
those women did at the club meetings, but Mom went to it every month. On those evenings, Dad made his famous grilled
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for us.
After we dined on the sandwiches, he made popcorn in the big skillet
with a lid, and we all settled in to watch the cowboy shows on TV.
The gray streets of Wichita continued to
slide past as Timmy and I sat in silence, looking out the car windows. We didn’t care if some old woman was a
righteous role model. We wanted
cartoons. We wanted Santa Claus, the
star of the show, and KAKE-man, his little puppet-sidekick.
It was getting dark outside as Mom pulled
the car up to the curb and stopped in front of an old mansion that housed
several elderly people. Timmy and I
begrudgingly followed Mom as she carried Amy Jo. We trailed behind during the walk up to the
house. I could picture Casper the Friendly Ghost hiding in the
bushes, or Vic Morrow from the show Combat
setting up a command post inside the big house.
I braced myself for a boring eternity inside a place full of old people.
As we entered the mansion, a wave of
heat came over us. I began to sweat in
my parka. The place had a musty smell and
was full of big furniture, dark carpets and thick varnished woodwork. There were a few stained glass windows in the
living room and hallways. It seemed more
like Halloween than Christmas Eve.
Mom introduced us to the elderly Amy in
a wide hallway with an old sofa and some side chairs. We smiled while the gray-haired woman patted
our heads with her bony hand encased in wrinkled skin and said, “You have such
wonderful looking children.” Then she
sat down to converse in mom-talk and look at our little sister.
Timmy tugged at my coat sleeve and
pointed to the corner of the hallway.
Just a few feet away stood a TV cabinet with rabbit ears on top. We stared at the dark screen.
He walked over to Mom and tapped her on
the shoulder. “Mom, can we watch TV?”
“Oh boys, not now,” she said as she turned and continued talking to her
friend.
He was persistent and tried again, “Mom,
we want to watch KAKE-man.”
She caved in and sighed, “I suppose it’s
okay if you keep the sound turned down.”
We hopped over to the set, clicked on
the volume and turned the knob to channel ten.
The reception was snowy, so I grabbed the rabbit-ear antennae and moved
them around. Slowly, a fuzzy looking
Santa came into view. He was loading the plywood sleigh with bags of packages.
“Ho, ho, ho, KAKE-man. Do you think we
have enough toys for all the good little girls and boys this Christmas? We’d better finish filling the sleigh so we
won’t be late. It takes a long time fly
all the way from the North Pole to all the cities and towns around the world. Ho, ho, ho!”
I had studied the North Pole in my grade
school geography book. It didn’t say anything
about a Santa village with elves. The
omission of Santa in the book sealed his fate for me. I knew it was a big fraud, but a lucrative
one for sure, as long as we played the game along with our parents.
Even with the raspy sound coming from
the speaker in the TV set, we sat mesmerized by the screen for the next few
minutes. Santa checked his list, and
KAKE-man jumped around inside the sleigh.
The excitement was building. This
happened only once a year.
KAKE-man’s voice squeaked, “These
packages are heavy, Santa, and it’s so-o c-c-cold up here.” It was hard to tell the difference between
the fake snow on the show and the fuzzy snow on the TV screen.
“It’s time to go boys,” said Mom as she
shut off the TV and said her “good-byes” to the old friend.
Timmy and I were horrified, but we held
our emotions in check while still inside the mansion. Once outside, my little brother began to
sniffle and smear tears on his cheeks.
I grabbed his shoulder, “Hey, maybe he’s
up there in the clouds somewhere. You
never know, you might see him if you look close enough.” I knew there wasn’t any sleigh up there, but
I had to give him some hope. Besides, he
might mistake a blinking light on a small plane for Rudolph.
Little Amy Jo cried and Timmy pouted on
the way home. I looked out into the
darkness and noticed that most of the businesses had closed early and turned
out the lights.
I thought of the evening ahead. It was a night for singing Christmas Carols
at the piano and reading the scripture of the real Christmas story from the
Bible. I sensed that spending time
together that evening was really important to Mom. She seemed happiest when we were doing things
as a family. When it was time for bed, we
set out a glass of milk and some of the decorated sugar cookies on a
plate for Santa.
The TV screen was dark that evening.
 |
| MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL . . . AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT! |
