S... is for Santa...

So instead of drawing a Santa today, I'm going to tell a story :).

My brother, sister and I growing up were believers. My parents never let Santa outshine Jesus, but we did believe in Santa.

Christmas started the first weekend of December [NOT Thanksgiving weekend], when we would head out to the woods an hour and a half away or so, and do the first Christmasey thing of the year: find a tree to cut down. Of course this tree was VERY much like a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, but we never knew any better [no one actually ever made fun of it until we moved to Missouri and one of my friends was looking at photographs of years past].

Then on December 6th we would leave our shoes out our front door for when St. Nicholas dropped by. I'm not sure what other people got when St. Nicholas came [I did now that not everyone got a visit from St. Nicholas], but we received [in our shoes :)], a piece of fruit, a toothbrush and a special tooth paste.

Unlike some people, I don't remember when exactly I stopped believing there was a Santa. But on Christmas, I might have been 5 or 6 [?], and I woke up in the middle of the night, with bad dreams or something. So like most kids do with this problem, I wandered out to the family area to find my parents to fix the problem.

I remember walking down our LONG long hallway, and out to find my Dad at the dinning room table maybe drinking coffee. I went up to him, rubbing my eyes, trying to tell him about my dream, and asking where Mom was, and he pointed behind me and said, "Look Maike, look who's here", and so I turned around, and sure enough... there was Santa. Who I looked up at shocked, somewhat still asleep, and a bit confused toward [he did, after all, come from our front door not the chimney]. He took my hand and led me back to bed.

I don't remember much after that, if we woke up the siblings, or not, but it is just a fun memory. Especially because at some point after that, I realized that the person who had dressed up as Santa... was my Mother :).

-maike rinaye-

PS: I think I should also try to re-do the blog-the-abc's-in-a-month during a slow month... maybe February :).