SANTA

Tomorrow night is Christmas Eve. Santa will circle the globe visiting all of the children. I remember being the jolly old elf’s first stop when we lived five miles southeast of Durand on Herb Lillie’s 120-acre farm. I was a second grader at the Dobson country school that sat on the far side of our garden. The ‘big kids’ had told me there was no Santa Claus, but I thought they were just teasing me, which they often did.

At 4:30 p.m., I had to go to the barn with my father while he hand-milked our small herd of a dozen cows. My mother usually helped him, but she was busy making supper for Aunt Frannie, Uncle Hookie, Doris and Sis who were coming at 7:00 to eat and open gifts. To wait for Dad, I sat down on Mom’s wooden milk stool. The body heat generated by the bovines had warmed the building enough that I took off my mittens and stuffed them in my snowsuit pockets. I picked up Fuzzy, our long-haired, coon-colored cat, and held her on my lap. She purred as I petted her. Tony, our white, English bulldog, was curled up on a bed of straw in the corner beside me. I told him all about our plans for the evening.

Dad interrupted, “Did you hear sleigh bells?” I’d missed the sound. He was soon done because he could skip the ones that were dried up in prepaaration for delivering calves in the new year.

I re-entered the house through the back porch and ran across the kitchen to the decorated tree in the living room. There sat the sled I had asked for when I talked to the man with the white beard at Sears & Roebuck department store in Rockford. The wooden surface atop the shiny, metal runners was painted bright red with DODGER in black letters down the middle. There also were more wrapped packages than when I went out. Mom was busy cooking and didn’t hear Santa slip in through the front door that we never used. That was the last year the reindeer stopped at my house.

How old were you when you quit believing in Santa Claus?