I blame my
brother.
If it hadn’t
been for him I could have held onto my childhood innocence just a little longer
before learning the real truth about the big guy in the red suit.
I was eight
years old. My brother was occupying the
upstairs bedroom (we have a large house with bedrooms both upstairs and
downstairs) and we arranged for me to sleep on the top bunk of his bunk
beds. It was Christmas Eve.
Just before
we fell asleep my brother asked me if I could hear the noise outside his
bedroom door. I could also see the light
on in the hallway. He told me the noise I
was hearing was Mom and Dad. They were
getting our presents wrapped and placed under the tree. They were also filling our stockings with
lots of little toys, gum, candy, and personal hygiene products (didn’t you also
get toothbrushes and deodorant in your Christmas stocking?). He explained that Santa didn’t really exist
and that it was just Mom and Dad pretending to be him. They ate the cookies and carrots that were
left for Santa and Rudolph and they left the thank you notes among the cookie
crumbs and partially eaten carrot.
It was all a
hoax.
I was devastated. I tossed and turned all night worrying over
this new knowledge I had just been given that I desperately wanted to give
back. I tossed and turned so much I fell
off the top bunk…
…and woke up
with a black eye.
Yep. Try explaining that to Mom the next
morning. And to make matters worse, I
couldn’t say ANYTHING because I had to protect my little sister from learning
this truth that now haunted me.
It made
opening gifts a little tougher that year knowing that they had not actually
been from Santa.
*On a side
note: I always wondered why Santa never filled Mom’s stocking. The four of us would pool some of our goods
and fill it for her. Now I know why.*
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