The first of many Harper Holiday Disasters
When Harpers screw up a holiday, we go big.
We don’t just break a few ornaments or blurt out the surprise special gift. We set fire to stuffing. We ruin brand new Christmas trees by shortening them with a pipe-cutter (so they no longer fit into the tapered tree base.) We are tortured by our parents’ Machiavellian gift maneuvering, leaving us unsure of whether we are getting a Nintendo system or a canned ham. It’s a tradition I have proudly continued to this year, when I made applesauce in Mom’s oven on Thanksgiving and set off the fire alarm.
TO PREVENT MY RUINING YOUR CHRISTMAS – IF YOU STILL BELIEVE IN SANTA CLAUS, YOU SHOULD STOP READING RIGHT HERE.
Our holiday disasters started when I was 6 or 7 and my family was living in Mississippi. My friend, Sharon’s*, dad thought it would be hilarious to get his older daughter to come storming into the house one afternoon just before Christmas, pretending to be upset, because her “school office” sent home a letter telling parents that Christmas had been cancelled.
Why? Because Santa Claus had been shot in a post office robbery. They told me that Santa had been gunned down while waiting in line for special Christmas stamps.
I was, of course, quite upset by the news and promptly burst into tears. Big, ugly, hysterical sobs. Did Dad or older daughter put an end to the joke and assure me that everything was OK and Christmas was still on schedule? No, no. That would have ruined the joke. They sent me home and didn’t say a word to my parents.
Because my sister, Manda, was 4 and did believe in Santa, I decided to suck it up and pretend like nothing happened. I didn’t want to upset her. I was a chatter-box kid, so my mom knew something was off when I was silent and glum through dinner and bedtime. I woke up at 2 a.m., screaming at the top of my lungs, “SANTA’S DEAD! HE’S DEAD! THEY SHOT HIM!”
My parents thought I was having a nightmare until I tearfully confessed that Sharon’s dad had broken the bad news earlier that day. Santa was dead, I told them sadly, and Christmas was cancelled. My mom left the room to call Sharon’s house.
To this day, I don’t know what was said. I do know that I didn’t see Sharon all that much after that. My mom can be a very scary person at 2 a.m.
My parents had to confess that Santa had not been shot in a post office robbery because he wasn’t real. They told me the whole story about parents buying, hiding and setting up presents on Christmas Eve. They even confessed to eating the carrot sticks and diet root beer I left out for Santa. (I was worried about Santa’s blood sugar.) I felt betrayed until I realized I’d been let into a secret club of “people who knew” and I loved feeling like a grown-up. I loved that I could collude with my parents to prolong the Santa myth for Manda, and later, my brother, Matt. I did, for years, and I made sure that when they were old enough, I was the one who GENTLY broke the news about Santa. I did not allow violent postal incidents to enter into it.
So there we have it. My traumatic Santa story. How did you find out the big guy wasn’t real?
*Names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.
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