Our hope was to get in and out of the mall before the full, teeming human horde descended; we didn’t quite make that. Instead, we found ourselves in a predicament not unlike that of all those poor stokers on the Titanic, who suddenly realized the waters were rising faster and the time had come to make for the lifeboats – now on the far side of way too many bustling, edgy people.
We did our best, pushing through, pressing on against the (mostly) teenage tide. I noticed my wife waving. I looked over to see a lonely Santa Claus waving back. His roped-off visitation area was utterly empty. He beckoned us come and sit and – presumably – bend his ear with our wants. We smiled and kept weaving our way through the masses.
But his overture put me in a mind of that infamous moment in family lore, dating back to my just-past toddler days, when my grandparents took it upon themselves to help me make the personal acquaintance of the jolly old elf.
My sister and I were at that too-brief age when life is wonderfully big, the world is comfortably small, and even such mundane assignments as “Go tell Daddy dinner’s ready” threw the doors of imagination wide to high adventure. Everything on TV held its black-and-white fascinations; every ringing of the doorbell was a summons to mystery and the possibility of enchantment.
A few days before Christmas that year, the doorbell fulfilled its happy potential: we opened the door to Nana and Papa, my dad’s parents, come to visit for the holiday. They’d come a long way to see that excitement dancing in our eyes, and we did not disappoint them. “Company” only added to the endless adventure of daily life; “company” with lots of brightly colored packages meant a delicious agony of suspense.
In grown-up land, a plot was afoot. Somewhere, Nana and Papa had hit upon the idea that, instead of going to the mall to see Santa, Santa could make a house call. They enlisted a man known to specialize in impersonations de Kringle, and made it worth his yuletide while to swing by, a few evenings before Christmas, and introduce his red-velveted self.
All through dinner that night, the folks dropped little hints about some marvelous surprise that could happen at any time. Excitement began to pound through our little arteries. Visions of – well, I don’t actually remember what I thought was coming (those images fled before the ensuing reality), but ‘m sure it wasn’t sugar plums … never did understand the appeal of sugar plums.
Suddenly, our doorbell lit up the charged air with its terse little burst of melody.
“See who it is!” my parents urged. We dashed, giggling, for the door. Hands smacked hands, trying, vying to pry the looming wooden portal open. At last we managed it, calls of sly encouragement singing out from the living room.
“Who is it?”
The great wreathed door swung slowly open, to reveal …
… an unimaginably huge, blood-red, white-haired monster, lunging down – hands reaching, grasping – calling our names ....
Horror. Savage, shuddering horror, groping for our young souls on the icy winter breeze.
We wailed, whirled, screamed, and fled hysterically for the sanctuary of our bedroom.
This was probably not how it went in rehearsal.
They never did pry my whimpering sister from the bedroom. Only a hard-hitting lecture on the responsibilities of young manhood – and an agreement that I could wear my cowboy hat and gun – were sufficient to drag me, halting and wary, out to the living room. The horrible man in the blood-stained costume put a long arm around and drew me in … much in the same way, I would imagine, that a giant octopus draws a helpless otter to its doom.
He asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Like I would entrust such a precious secret to him. Like I was even going to live ‘til Christmas, knowing he was probably coming back in the middle of the night to get me, once my hat and gun lay useless on the chair way across my darkened room.
I stood in the crook of his arm, trembling. I murmured the bare minimum of polite conversation. When he asked my sister’s name, I lied – the least I could do was save her from his evil clutches.
Finally, finally, FINALLY, he left, one less beguiled-child notch on his candy cane. I hoped his reindeer bit him.
I was banished to bed early, the better for the grown-ups, no doubt, to discuss what went wrong. Heavy covers o’er my head, I lay awake, deep into the night, waiting ho-ho-hopelessly for the sound of his boots on my window sill … those huge dark gloves encircling my throat.
These days, I sleep (mostly) with my head above the covers. My hopes are made of surer stuff.
But a part of me feels a lot, these chilly evenings, like that wary, pajamaed little boy … squinting at this new, imitation administration now standing in the cold doorway of the months and years to come. It’s long legal arms reaching, grasping, groping out for me and my loved ones … so curiously sure we’re glad to see it coming.
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