Santa and Dora Claus

By David Wood

I’ll never forget the day I found out there was no Santa Claus. It was a cold, mid-December Minnesota afternoon that my mom had picked to sit me down and reveal the truth of the great Christmas fabrication. She broke the hard news that Santa Claus was nothing but one big lie. Taken aback and full of Perry Mason bravado, I started my cross examination, “Well, mother, if that is your real name, who is responsible for the gifts then?” My mom – a single parent – came clean and said that she had been the one who had bought me all those presents over the years and not that overweigh, white-bearded fellow who supposedly showed up with bundles of swag every Christmas Eve.

I had wanted so desperately wanted to believe in Santa just as I did in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and that I’d one day be a professional baseball player. All of which turned out to be falsehoods. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t shed tears and carry on a bit when the curtain of truth was opened wide about that imposter Mr. S. Claus – that phony, counterfeit sham. That was a tough life lesson to learn at twenty-seven. 

No, I wasn’t really twenty-seven. I was a ten-year-old with an active imagination. I was always surprised when Santa showed up at our place because we had no fireplace, and thus no sooty chute for him to shimmy down. As a youngster who liked to watch crime shows on TV, I always assumed that once Santa realized we didn’t have his preferred method of home entry, he probably jimmied open a window with a screwdriver and came in like a cat burglar – a beefy cat burglar wearing a red felt suit and a reindeer powered get-away sled. The milk and cookies I left out as a midnight snack for Santa were always gone the next morning. It was calming to know that Santa wasn’t lactose intolerant.

Until learning the truth about Santa, was there anything better than waking up early on a Christmas morning, running downstairs, and finding the living room crammed with presents around the brightly lit Christmas tree? Santa always knew exactly what I wanted. One year I received the ultimate – a red stingray bike with a banana seat that made me the coolest kid in third grade! Heck, I didn’t even mind the socks and underwear that Santa seemed to feel I needed a fresh supply of each year. It all seemed too good to be true. Alas, it was.

You might have thought I would have figured the ruse out sooner with every department store having a different looking Santa hearing the pleas from the naughty and nice. One store would have a big-bellied, ebullient Santa who looked like he was weaned on Twinkies and in dire need of working out on a treadmill. The next would have a Santa with the tapered waistline of an Olympic sprinter with his bulky Santa suit draped over his lithe frame like overalls on a scarecrow. Some Santas had fake white beards that were strangely askew and with what appeared to be hooks behind their ears. One Santa smelled a bit like my mom’s cooking sherry when you got close to him with your list.

One year, I recall a beatnikish looking Santa who wore sandals with green socks instead of shiny black books. His eyes were bloodshot and he smelled strangely like rope. Years later while living in a college dorm and smelling cannabis for the first time I realized that wasn’t rope I had smelled on that sky-high imposter. I also remember that he sported a tattoo on his left wrist. The sleeve on his red Santa coat had gathered up and there was the tribute to his beloved revealed for all us little kids to see. It was a red heart with the name “Dora” written in looping cursive across the left and right ventricle. I figured I could use this insider information to my benefit. Perhaps my request for the red stingray bicycle with the banana seat might be a real possibility in exchange for a cheerful greeting back to Mrs. Claus.  Santa gave me a strange look when I asked him to give Dora a kiss for me when he got back to the North Pole. He brought me the bike anyway.