A Christmas to Remember

Snow continued to fall gently, as it had for the past 12 days. It truly looked like the storybook ‘winter wonderland’. Up and down both sides of the street, the neighborhood appeared like a fairy tale. Christmas lights and scenes had sprung up in virtually everyone’s yard with everything from the traditional lighting to homemade elves in ‘Santa’s Workshop’. Our own house was no exception.

The front entrance was decked out in blue and green lights that winked on and off continually. The junipers under the living room window were spot lit with yellow which, under the soft blanket of snow, had an aura rather like spun gold. The young birch saplings were strung with red reflective globes and the blue spruce, nearly 40 feet tall, was crowned with a star 3 feet in diameter. The family tree could be seen through the living room window, so full of ornaments and tinsel you could hardly make out the foliage. Packages lay under the tree, with some of the smaller ones suspended lovingly in its branches. The strains of traditional carolling could be heard off in the distance, while in my own home I knew some holiday classic with Bing Crosby was likely on television.

It was with all of this seasonal beauty in mind that I ascended to the roof, snow shovel in hand. It had been while clearing the driveway that I noticed, while looking up at the fat, fluffy flakes drifting down, just how much snow had accumulated on the roof. Several feet thick, it was no longer a sight to admire, but rather represented several tons of pressure on the rafters and supporting walls. The time had come to clear it off, even if it meant circling the house again with the snowblower afterward. So I climbed to the gutter and worked my way onto the deep drifts atop the shingles.

Stopping for a breath about 30 minutes into the laborious task, I noticed that the snow had stopped falling. In fact, the sky had cleared and the crisp December night was now illuminated by thousands of tiny, twinkling stars. It was at that moment I could have sworn I heard sleigh bells. The street was empty, and dark too, except for the colorful displays. Listening, all I could hear by now was my own heavy breathing. A cloud of foggy breath enveloped my head. Had it been silhouetted against the moon, one could almost have believed I resembled an angel. I resumed the shoveling but stopped immediately, convinced once more that I had heard bells. Leaning on the shovel and taking a peek over my shoulder I was absolutely stunned to see a reindeer-driven sleigh slicing through the night and heading straight for my own house out of the starlit sky. Snow billowed outward as the strange vehicle landed forcefully on the still snow-capped half of the roof.

A fat bearded man in a red suit, trimmed with white, and carrying a large sack over his back, stepped from the side of the sleigh. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Sure, this was Christmas Eve, but I had already bought all the gifts the children had asked for. Every year it had been the same. In a whisper I spoke out loud, “Santa Clause isn’t real”. My eyes bulged with disbelief.

Scarcely had the red-clad man stepped out of the sleigh when he slipped on the roof, temporarily losing his balance. He fell to one knee, arms flailing. I stepped forward to help, but saw that this strange visitor’s stumble was only minor. What I hadn’t noticed was that as ‘Santa’ struggled to maintain his balance, his jerky, awkward and sudden movements had spooked the lead reindeer dreadfully. With flaring nostrils and a terror stricken look, the nine deer began to prance and tremble uneasily, each one smelling the fear of the next as it spread down the line. The harness soon became entangled and Santa was quick to drop the sack in order to try calming the excitable, high strung animals. With one terrific jerk, while holding onto a halter, he was lifted completely off his feet and dropped right in the midst of the now panic stricken brutes.

My mouth dropped as I watched helplessly, the Santa of my boyhood being trampled mercilessly. Red velvet and white fur flew in all directions. Each time Santa appeared about to crawl free he was somehow drawn back into the center of the frenzy, as if caught in a backwash. Blood began to stain the remaining snow on the roof and trickled toward the eaves. Santa’s face was becoming a bludgeoned, pulpy mass; his body a crumpled lifeless form beneath the spindly legs and hooves that continued raining down their mortal blows.

After what seemed like hours, but was really less than three minutes, the beasts calmed down, drained of energy, the panic spent. The fright that started the carnage was waning. With a snort here and a pawing hoof there, they finally seemed to have forgotten what had just taken place and stood placidly in the reddened, crusty snow, steam rising from their flanks.

And, eventually, I too got over the trauma of what I had witnessed that Christmas Eve. In retrospect, though, the fact that my children were presented with a seemingly bottomless bag of toys the next day; and considering that we enjoyed fine homemade sausage all the rest of that winter, it really hadn’t been such a bad experience after all.