A Christmas Story
By Linda Saholt, East Sierra Branch
One of my favorite Christmas memories dates back to when my daughters were young. Adrianne was 15 and Jennie was 3 ½. Back then, we celebrated Christmas at my grandparents’ home in Santa Barbara on Christmas Eve, with a big family get-together, dinner, and exchanging of presents. Traditionally, after dinner, one of the men in the family would be volunteered to dress up as Santa and bring a gift to each of the small children, to kick off the festivities.
That year, Jennie was the only small child present. The uncle who normally played this part was on travel elsewhere, Dad was limping on a cane following hip surgery, and Grampa couldn’t lift his feet to walk well. But Tradition must be upheld!
Adrianne volunteered to play this part for her baby sister.
She was a skinny five-foot blonde with long hair at the time. My mother and Gramma disappeared into a back room to help her put on the costume. The rest of us tried to keep Jennie occupied and distracted during this process.
Time seemed to stretch on interminably. We were down to trying to sing Christmas carols a cappella, something none of us did well. We quickly found that there were no carols that we all knew the words to, and we kept looking furtively at each other. Jennie kept looking at us like she knew something was up.
Finally, we heard jingling bells outside the front door, the signal that Santa had arrived. We heard a cracking voice holler, “Ho, ho ho!” Mom opened the door and pretended to be surprised.
“Look, Jennie, it’s Santa Claus!”
Adrianne stood there in the dim porch light, the huge costume hanging limply on her thin frame. A pillow had been stuffed down the front of the costume, and you could see its shape, with all four corners, clearly outlined by the red fabric. Rebellious long hairs kept sliding out from under the Santa hat, the plastic mask was noticeably wider than her face, and she kept nearly tripping on the dragging pant legs. Although her two helpers had tightened the pants waist as much as possible, it wasn’t enough, and the pillow kept answering the call of gravity. Adrianne had to keep one hand on both the pillow and pants to keep from losing them altogether. In the other hand, she clutched a pillowcase containing Jennie’s gift.
It was all any of us could do to keep straight faces, as this apparition struggled to keep from falling apart. She kept trying to pitch her voice low, which wasn’t working, either. “You must be Jennie. Have you been a good little girl this year?”
Jennie grinned hugely. “Hi, Adrianne!”
So “Santa” handed Jennie her gift, said, “Merry Christmas” and fumbled with the door, attempting to make her escape before the red pants gave up and hit the floor.
All the adults were waving to her, “Bye, Santa!” in a vain effort to help rescue the illusion. Adrianne tried to wave back with the pillowcase hand and nearly lost control as the pillow slid down to her knees.
By the time Adrianne had fled to safety, got in the back door, shed the costume and returned to the living room with an innocent look fixed firmly on her face, Jennie had opened her present and was playing with it.
Various adults tried to make “You just missed Santa” noises to Adrianne, but Jennie wasn’t buying it.
“Look what you brought me, Adrianne. Thank you,” she said.
I watched my two precious daughters sitting on the floor, enjoying the new toy. They shared a great love, and still do. We have since laughed about the “Santa incident” and Adrianne laughed loudest. She willingly went along with a potentially embarrassing situation and did the best she could under the circumstances—all out of love for her baby sister. That was my greatest gift that year!