Sugarplums and Firetrucks

He leaned back against my body, his small shoulders shivering with cold and excitement. We could hear the siren turn it’s voice to the left or right occasionally, but always it grew ever closer to the spot we stood bundled against the cold at the end of our suburban driveway. The flashing lights flickered through the trees as the fire truck crept along our street in slow motion emergency fashion. We could see the neighbor children waving but the only sound in the clear night air was the piercing scream normally associated with danger. Finally it was our turn, and as the truck slowed, a man in a red suit and white beard lifted his frozen arm and tossed candy at my boy’s feet. “Santa, Mama, It’s Santa” he gasped, with a voice filled with awe and a bit of trepidation. His Dad and I led him willingly up the driveway as the noise and excitement faded around the curve of the road. It was late for a 6 year old to be up on a school night and he made no protest as I pulled off the parka we had put over his flannel pajamas and tucked him into his bed. “Mama,” he said, contemplatively, “Santa sure is loud, isn’t he.” I smiled and agreed with his astute evaluation, gave him one last hug and kiss, and left him there to ponder how such a noisy and slow fellow could get all around the world, gobble down cookies and milk, leave notes on the fireplace and toys under the tree for children, all without anyone noticing.

It’s the season again and the jolly red suited elf has is out and about the county terrifying and amazing a new generation of innocents. My husband listens for the siren out of long habit, and keeps running to the window all evening hoping to see him, like there were still babies to wrap warm and carry hearts racing, into the dark night. With Christmas only days away, it only reminds me of all I have to do in the little time remaining. Still I know why he does it, why he presses against the pane, remembering the years when the house rang with childish noises, protests at bedtime, and problems easily solved with a hug and a kiss. We both embrace the adult versions of our offspring, but in our hearts is a longing to travel back in time to those days of simplicity, when all things were possible, pirates and wizards and jolly elves, all of whom were modeled after two very human parents, elevated by their enchanted love to heroic status.

When my oldest reached the age of unreasonableness that is so necessary for the break from the safety of home and hearth, he chided me for lying to him about Santa. Foolishly I tried to explain to him that secrets and mysteries are part of the joy of childhood. I defended my years of increasingly contrived stories about how St Nick accomplished his miraculous journey while always my boy’s world and his skepticism grew ever larger. When his brother and sister joined us he was still a believer, a bit long in the tooth even then for the magic to still live in his heart, but with younger siblings we stretched it out for as long as possible. When I finally told him the total truth I tried to soften it the way my parents had, explaining the spirit of love and brotherhood was the true meaning of Christmas and those values were the important things I had wanted him to take with him. “But you lied to me,” my adult son intoned years later with righteous indignation. I had reared a man of honor, a man whose idealism would always run like a flood over the evil of the world. “What else did you lie about,” he asked, cutting to the quick. In the ensuing years he has matured, forgiven me my weakness, but he assures me tales of flying reindeer and golden keys will not hoodwink his children. The man that he is overwhelms me sometimes, the boy I knew still peeking through in places worn bare from the rough edges of the world. He still takes himself too seriously at times, protests against inconsistencies of life as if they were correctable, and lives life with both passion and an occasional despair. Santa notwithstanding, I believe he is a man who keeps Christmas in his heart.

His siblings gave up the myth with more grace, assured that gifts would still come they were content. My middle child was born with an ancient and logical soul, his sister with a heart that could not long despair over things lost. Still, for many years beyond their disbelief, they raced to the door when they heard the fire siren on those sharply frozen December nights. One last Christmas my girl laid aside reason in a last ditch effort to believe and asked that cookies and milk, plus a carrot for Rudolph be left at the base of the woodstove that was fitted tightly into the chimney opening. I do not remember how the boys reacted to her fit of mysticism, but my husband and I ran quickly over her Christmas list, trying to remember if she had asked for a pony. I recall well the year I could not get them to even look out into the window when they heard the fire truck approaching, but just like every other year they eagerly opened the gifts marked “from Santa” that appeared under the tree on Christmas mornings. As the deadline approaches this year I am once again amused to try to find gifts appropriate for the stockings of adults who believe not in elves but in ritual. My girl wants no candy, my oldest only vegan treats, but my middle child has no opinion on stocking stuffers. As I contemplate lottery tickets and perhaps a good bottle of wine to fill the spot that once held plastic and sugarplums, I realize that regardless of the years, my children still hold a place in their hearts for magic. On Christmas morning they will all be here, not for the cookies or the gifts, but for the love and family traditions we created together.