I am Santa Claus: A Parenting Journey
Christmas Eve. Just after somewhere between 7:30 and 8:57-ish at night. My wife was hurried away in the kitchen preparing tomorrow morning’s breakfast—an egg casserole that’ll put hair on your mother’s balls. Delicious. I was lulling the child to sleep with three books. One about trucks, another about construction trucks, and the third, Goodnight Moon.
“Go to sleep, my boy. Santa is on his way. The sooner you go to sleep, the sooner morning comes.”
“Night night, Daddy, I love you.”
“I love you.”
We were excited to get started on making Christmas come to life for our sweet, little boy, age two years, nine months, two-weeks old. A big Tonka dump truck stuffed with… I dunno, all sorts of shit the kid’ll love. At the Tonk’s wheels was a smaller, but, to scale, blue Camaro or something. He asked Santa for a blue car. That’s what my wife got him. He’ll fucking love it.
She took the lead on 98.9 percent of the gifts we bought for our son and our other family members. She’s an incredible gift-getter. And she wrapped. And I bought a thing or two and wrapped some stuff, too.
The presents were placed under our tree. But Santa’s present doesn’t arrive until the morning of. Bigger, better than the rest. Unwrapped. And in this year’s case, the dump filled with crayons and bits and stuff and goo and things. Katie set everything up. I fetched the cookies and milk, and a carrot stick.
With everything set, we settled into the couch to watch It’s a Wonderful Life with a couple of drinks and snacks within reach. Shortly after Mary and the Bedford Falls Patriarchy—enforced by George’s mother, ’Ma “No Vacancy” Bailey—cajoled George to give up on everything, get married and stay in Bedford Falls, I remembered we had to eat the cookie and carrot, and drink the milk. We needed to provide the kid with evidence that Santa doesn’t only give, he takes.
As I slugged back the last gulp of milk washing the cookie down and took the last nibble of carrot doing my best to make it look like a reindeer had taken a moment with it, it hit me. I had become Santa Claus. I had officially crossed over to that other side of the hill. I was no longer a kid with a kid of his own, I was a parent. An actual parent. This wasn’t my son’s first Christmas, so it wasn’t my first experience playing the late night-roll. It was the first where the kid was old enough to understand leaving snacks out for Santa was part of the game. Accepting, not recognizing, the awesome responsibility of playing Santa Claus is what makes you Santa Claus.
My wife and I had become the living, breathing actual Santa Claus. We were the very thing that will bring our son excitement, surprise, and joy for years to come in the most commercialized way possible. I realized this, I accepted this, and then I wept. I couldn’t help it. The tears just came and they wouldn’t stop. I was Santa Claus. Wow. I had arrived as a parent. I was also quite drunk.
