"High Drama"


by Monica Petter



Christmas was always magical to me as a child. I believed that God and Santa were best friends. As I get older, I see Christmas differently. I still feel that tingle up my spine, that twinge of anticipation on Christmas morning, but it is for another reason – I anticipate the warmth in my heart not from receiving, but from giving. I want everyone to know and to feel love in the presents I give – the love like I received as a child.


When I look back and try to dig up fond, old memories of Christmas mornings past as a child, they always blur into one big day. Grant, Jeremy and I always had our share of high drama. I remember many nights thinking I heard Santa on the rooftop and closing my eyes, but perking my ears. It turned out it was my parents and grandparents getting our gifts from the attic. Nice effect for a dreamer like me. I remember sleeping in sleeping bags around my parent’s bed – they had us under heavy surveillance. Mom telling us that we could not get up and open presents until 6 a.m. and you can bet we watched the red light of the digital clock with heart-pounding anticipation pouncing our parents as 5:59 rolled over.


Grant always had to slither down the hall to check and see what Santa left because back in the seventies and eighties, it wasn’t cool to wrap everything – the proverbial carrot. He always tried to tell me what he saw, but my love of kismet and my faith in Santa always had me putting my hand over his mouth. Jeremy, poor cousin, always fell into our magic. We could make him pee his pants from the sheer nerves we stirred in his little innocent heart. My favorite Santa prank was the letter from one of Santa’s elves to him. It was always cold because Grant and I put it in the freezer for ten minutes and then we strategically placed it to where he would find it. Anything to let Jeremy feel that excitement, the rush of belief, we pushed that button with our imaginations.


The boot print was my most powerful evidence that Santa existed. Walking in and finding that meant more to me than the presents he left. For, he was real. I was a hard believer in ol’ St. Nick. I got so excited that I had to lie down after opening my presents – high drama, I told you. It was worse than a bunch of women swooning – the decibel level illegal. Of course the rituals abound and I still practice one of them to this day. Grant remembers, “So jump in the bed and cover up your head cause Santa Claus comes tonight” as we jumped into bed, such wired children. I still have to watch the classics – A Christmas Story, Frosty, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, but my favorite is How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without them or Grant and Jeremy.


What I have taken from these memories is that Christmas is about family – yours or one that you create. It is about taking a moment to give thanks for all the blessings in your life. It isn’t about the presents, but more, what they represent – love, appreciation. If you peel back the commercial side that is ever so popular, you will realize that what fuels it is the need to believe in each other – faith. Just like I believed in Santa with unconditional hope. The sound of sleigh bells to this very day sends chills up my spine. He’s coming, he remembered. Reach out to those you love. Let them know you remember. Santa never forgot me.