Belief

Many people remember, or at least talk about, the moment when they realized that there wasn't a Santa Claus.  I mean, it's a fundamental element of childhood - believing in things like the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy.  And, then...we get to that point where we are all grown up and things like that seem clearly unrealistic.

I have a different memory.  I have the memory of the time when I truly believed that Santa existed.  I mean, with these events in my memory, how could he not?

Growing up, we had an interesting relationship with Santa and the Christmas holiday.  In all of my years growing up, I only remember once or twice actually waking up on December 25th and having Christmas ON Christmas morning.  It may have happened more often than that, but I don't really remember.  We typically traveled to Cincinnati to visit family on Christmas, so we tended to celebrate the actual present-opening part of the holiday on a different day.  As you can imagine, this made things a tad difficult for my parents, who wanted their children to believe in Santa.  But, how do you explain why Santa doesn't come to our house on the 25th??

So, we grew up knowing that my parents had a good deal with the big, red guy.  He was more than happy to visit our house on a day other than the 25th!  We were very lucky.  Sometimes, we would come home from school to gifts under the tree.  Sometimes, we would wake up on the 22nd and TA-DA!  Christmas!  But, there was one particular year that I will NEVER forget.

It was a Sunday morning just a few days before Christmas and we were leaving later that day or the next morning (that bit of the story is a blur) and we hadn't had Christmas yet.  I was getting nervous.  I was afraid that Santa had forgotten our deal or that he was too busy to get to our house BEFORE Christmas and we were going to have to wait until we got back from Cincinnati to have our holiday.

We had gone to church that morning.  I remember saying to my mom on the way there that maybe, just maybe, Santa would come while we were at church.  I mean, that was more than an hour - that was PLENTY of time for him to get the job done, right?  My mom told me that it was unlikely, but wouldn't that be nice.  I sat through the entire service thinking about this.  OK, I admit it, I think that I was pouting.  I was pretty young and wanted to have Christmas!!  But, my mom just kept telling me that there was no way it would happen.

When we got home from church...I slowly plodded into the house.  Everything looked normal at first glance and then, I realized...SANTA HAD COME!!  The tree was lit, there were beautifully wrapped gifts under it's branches - each topped with a brightly colored bow.

Now, by this time, I think that I was old enough to begin to question the existence of the big guy...and had begun to suspect my parents of impersonation.  But, they had been with me at church.  So, CLEARLY, they couldn't be Santa!!  Right?

It was then that I truly believed.  The big guy does exist.  Just so you all know.