Skip to main content

TRUDY FRISK – The Year I Knew There Was No Santa Claus

“Lost a Santa, gained a sister” -- Linda six Christmas's later


“Is Santa real?” To a ten-year-old that’s a very important question. 

 

I talked it over with Roger, my six-year-old brother.  We’d heard whispers from older kids at school.  There was no Santa, they said.

 

“It’s all made up. Your parents do everything. They buy the presents, stuff the stockings. They hide presents away so you won’t see them, then stay up late Christmas Eve to put them under the tree.” 

 

We weren’t sure what to think.  We couldn’t imagine many hiding places we didn’t know about in our log cabin.

 

Who ate the tea and cookies we left for Santa?  “That’s easy” scoffed the big kids. “Your Dad!” 

 

And the carrots for the reindeer?  Where did they go?  “Back into the cellar, of course!”  We couldn’t accept that.

 

We didn’t involve our four-year-old brother Buddy in these discussions.  We didn’t want to upset him.

 

Santa brought us wonderful presents: skis, cowboy outfits complete with cap guns, a hand-made bridal outfit for my large doll, once, even a puppy.  Presents were exciting, but the best part of Christmas was the mystery, waiting for the sound of reindeer hooves crunching on the roof, knowing if we weren’t asleep Santa would move on to the next house two miles away, trying to sleep yet stay awake for just one peek at him.

 

We decided not to risk all that.  We were going to stick with Santa.

 

Everything changed December 20th.  


Our mother, up till then perfectly healthy, as far as we could judge, was taken to hospital in McBride. No one explained to us children why she was going or when she’d be back.  As she was going out the door, she called me to her and said very softly, “Your Father’s Christmas present is in the trunk.  Don’t tell him. Please wrap it for him for Christmas.”

 

This was a shock. When Father had gone out to feed the animals, Roger and I checked.  There was the present, a big, plaid Mackinaw jacket. Now for the wrapping paper. A jacket is a bulky thing to wrap, but we managed.  Roger put his arms around it and held it together as tight as he could while I struggled to cover it with sheets of wrapping paper.  Done: back into the trunk it went.

 

On Christmas Eve we snuck out of bed after Father was asleep to put his present under the tree. We didn’t think he heard us; at least he seemed surprised on Christmas morning. There were presents for us three children, too. Either Santa had arrived as usual, or, as we were beginning to suspect, Father had wrapped those presents when the three of us were outside playing in the snow.

 

We played outside a lot that Christmas holiday. Father was always ready to clean snow off the beaver ponds so we could have a family game of hockey, he played hide and seek with us, and recited, in chilling tones, The Cremation of Sam McGee. But he was not about to have three children aged four to ten in the cabin all day.  We built snowmen, and snow forts, dug out paths for the cats, and wondered when Mother was coming home.

 

We had a lot of time to talk about Santa. Reluctantly Roger and I decided he was probably just a story told by grownups.  Because we still liked the story, we didn’t share our conclusion with Buddy. “Let him believe as long as he can.”  

 

One day we received exciting news.  We had a baby sister.  She was born December 21st.  Immediately we began thinking of names for her. We were disappointed when Father told us he and Mother had already chosen her name, Linda Anne.

 

Mother came home soon after Christmas, but Linda wasn’t with her.  Because she was born much earlier than expected, she had to stay in the incubator in the McBride hospital.

 

We speculated about her, wondered what she’d look like, what games she might want to play.  Now we had a balanced family, two boys and two girls.  Our parents had done well.

 

Meanwhile we noticed that more presents were appearing.  Apparently Mother had hiding places not even Father suspected. That settled the Santa question.

 

Linda was in the incubator in McBride hospital for over two months. She came home March 1st, Roger’s birthday.

 

It was a sunny spring day, far removed from that dark December afternoon when he and I wrapped Father‘s Christmas present.  We each got to hold her.

 

“Lost a Santa, gained a sister,” we thought, planning future games and adventures.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BEV (Hockley) FORSETH -- From coal oil lanterns to the glow of our first Christmas lights

  The early 1960s was a time of transition in rural BC.   Many rural areas had electricity for the first time.   It was also a time of transition in my family as my oldest sister returned home with her two small children, to regroup after her marriage ended.   We lived in a log house my father built in the rural community of Horsefly.   The arrival of electricity was an event that few nowadays could possibly appreciate.   We no longer needed coal oil lanterns for light, the pie safe outside to keep food cool, or the wringer washer to wash clothes. Mom no longer had to can meat, fish, fruit, and vegetables to prevent spoiling as we quickly acquired a large deep freeze.     Even before power arrived my mother bought a shiny new electric steam iron.   She was as good as her word -- the day we got electricity she threw away all her “sad irons” that had to be heated on the old wood cookstove.   Clothing could be dried in the new ...
Post a Comment
Read more

JOHN FELSTED -- Christmas was heartwarming. While we lacked what we wanted, we had what we needed

My favourite Christmas story was related to me by a family acquaintance who grew up in an urban setting. We discussed the hard times our families had to deal with during the depression of the 1930s. I was too young to know the experiences directly, but she was old enough to be an aunt. Her story was about the 1931 Christmas: We had little to enjoy that Christmas as my father had been laid off from work. We could not get a traditional turkey and would have to make do with a tube of bologna. We were not looking forward to Christmas day. On Christmas eve, my mother announced that we would all have a bath on Christmas morning and put on our best clothes for Christmas dinner. We all did as told. Just after noon on Christmas day, we were called to dinner. We passed bowls of vegetables, stuffing and gravy around. Mother had heated the bologna in the oven and put it on a platter in front of my father. He had brought out the carving knife and fork kept for our special dinners. Father tu...
Post a Comment
Read more

TRUDY FRISK -- It all began one Christmas day, in a log cabin with a small, brown, eager, puppy named Rover

  He was probably the best loved Christmas present we children ever had.     One year, when all the presents had been opened, our parents announced that there was one more and brought in a cardboard box. Inside it a small, brown, floppy-eared puppy looked up at us eagerly.   Our first dog! We couldn't believe it.   We had him out of that box immediately.   After much patting and playing the puppy, tired from all the enthusiasm, fell asleep with his head on my brother's knee.     Roger turned to me and whispered, " I'm not going to move until he wakes up !"   He didn't.   He sat very still, solemn, and happy.   How old were we that Christmas?   Four, six and eight seems about right.   Young enough not to question where the puppy had been hidden.   (It's not easy, believe me, to hide a dog, however small, in a three-room log cabin.)   Was he out in the chicken house? Down in the barn?   And...
Post a Comment
Read more