I Saw Santa Claus. Really.

I think probably everyone has seen The Polar Express movie, based on the book by Chris Van Allsburg.  What a delight!  We watch it nearly every year.  We always choke up, when, at the very end the narrator says, “At one time most of my friend could hear the bell, but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them.  Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound.  Though I’ve grown old, the bell still rings for me as it does for all who truly believe.”

I used to read that book to the schoolchildren when I was a school librarian.  I kept a bell in my hand the whole time I read the book, then at the very end I would open my hand to reveal the bell and say, “Listen!  I can hear it.”  They would all pipe up that they could too.  Of course they could.

I believe for many reasons.  A lot of it has to do with my mom, who loved Christmas and made fantasy lands for us, with delightful presents, cookies, a pretty tree, and lots of love.  But part of it has to do with a certain memory when I was about five years old.

We lived in Newfoundland and you can be sure we got white Christmases.  I was concerned about Santa Claus’ entrance to our house, as we had no fireplace and no chimney.  My older brother Clark and I considered the perils of a fat man trying to enter the house via the furnace, the closest thing we could think of to a fireplace. 

“No,” our parents assured us, “he will not come through the furnace. He must come through the front door.”

“Where will he park his sleigh then?” we asked.  The roof seemed a bit silly if one was going to come through the front door.  How would he get down from the roof?

“He’ll park out in the parking lot, like everyone else.”  We lived in Navy housing, which was a triangle of townhomes facing a common center of grass.

On Christmas eve, Mom was making cookies, and she had the window of the kitchen open a wee bit to cool the steamy kitchen.  The snow was falling and Clark and I looked out upon the snowy common.

“You children better get to bed,” our parents warned.  “We are so far north here that Santa will come here early.  If you are not in bed, he won’t stop and leave presents.”

It was far to lovely that Christmas Eve to go to bed.  For there was the ripe tree yearning for presents to be placed underneath, the smell of cookies about to pop out of the oven, the gloriously beautiful snow that we would go sledding on tomorrow.  Our parents looked at each other and sighed.

“You really must get to bed,” Mom said as she prepared to put more cookies in the oven.

Clark and I looked out the window, side by side in our matching plaid flannel shirts, my personal favorite.  I adored Clark. 

Around the corner of the neighboring townhouse came none other than Santa Claus.  Through the snow, he looked at house numbers and ran jingling to my best friend Cathy’s house.

“Mom,” said Clark, bass-voiced and serious even at age six. “I see Santa Claus.”

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” was about all I could get out.

Mommy came over to the window.  “Where?”  She didn’t need directions, she and we all saw him go into Cathy’s house.  I sure hoped Cathy was in bed.

“You better get to bed RIGHT NOW!” boomed my father, surprisingly merry.  When he laughed, his hookish nose turned down and got red, and his eyes turned turquoise.

Clark and I scrambled up the stairs, ripped off our clothes, and hopped into bed in our shared bedroom.  “Are we supposed to be asleep?” I asked Clark.  “Because I can’t do it.”

Daddy came up the stairs. “Did you kids brush your teeth?”

“Nooooo!” we wailed.

“Get out of bed and brush your teeth,” he said.

We zipped into the bathroom and brushed frantically, remembering that we might as well wash our faces or that would be ordered next.

Daddy came in our darkened bedroom.  We were never allowed a nightlight, which was fine on this night, as Santa wouldn’t be able to see if our sleep was fake or not.

“Did you say your prayers?” Daddy asked.

Again a wail.

“Say your prayers, then.”

We rattled them off, but I am sure God understood.

Daddy kept giggling, but neither Clark nor I found anything amusing about it.

In the morning, there was a beautiful Lionel train set that my brother still owns.  I got a real-looking baby doll I played with for years, which only recently disintegrated.  My mom said later that before she went to bed she looked back at the gifts under the tree and knew it was a children’s Christmas tree to be forever remembered.

Now I’m a grandmother, and we will have lots of trees with presents for children heaped under them, with cookies to make the kitchen smell good, and angels at the treetop to smile benevolently upon us.

Though I’ve grown old, the bell still rings for me.