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| I sit on Santa's knee in the Detroit Institute of Arts December 1 on Noel Night |
My volunteer badge clipped to
my red sweater, I stand inside the Detroit Institute of Arts. A reindeer
headband accents my holiday cheer. I’m happy to oblige when asked to take
tickets for pictures with Santa. As a youngster, I believed in Santa Claus with
all my heart.
A
sense of expectation swells in the queue of parents and children as Santa poses
in his chair for a camera check. Oh the joy of Noel Night in downtown Detroit!
Impeccably
dressed in his red and white suit and bearded with his own whiskers, he utters
not one “Ho! Ho! Ho!” The twinkle in his eyes says it all. This Santa embodies how
I imagine the real Saint Nicholas.
I recall my
dad on Christmas Eve. Ever the prankster, he would point to the darkness
outside our living room’s window. “Look! Up there, over the Rivard’s house.
There’s Rudolf’s red nose! Listen to Santa’s sleigh bells!”
I’d
stand still as a statue and strain my eyes and ears. Year after year, never did
I doubt Dad told the truth. After all, I believed in Jesus without seeing Him.
Santa’s
cameraman motions thumbs up. I collect tickets and drop them into a box. “Merry
Christmas!”
“Merry
Christmas!” guests reply.
I believed
Santa, Mrs. Claus, and their elves lived in the North Pole—a place like Heaven.
Even when Santa didn’t eat all our cookies and drink the milk we left, I
believed in his eternal return Christmas Eve.
Until
my ninth year.
That
summer while at play, a cousin my age leaned close. “Your mommy wrote my mommy a
letter and said she’s pregnant, that she’s always pregnant.”
Unawares,
my cousin taught me a new word. By summer’s end, my childhood innocence
unraveled entirely. I knew where babies came from and Santa no longer existed.
As
the line for Santa thins, I observe his gentleness with the children, teens,
and adults. It’s odd. I can’t remember sitting on Santa’s knee as a child. Did I
ever tell him what I wanted for Christmas? Miraculously, he always left the
desire of my heart under our tree.
Santa
looks across the spacious hall and catches my eye. He waves a gloved hand and points
to his knee.
I shake
my head and point to the ticket box.
“Iris,
I’ll take tickets if you’d like a picture with Santa,” my volunteer director says.
Santa
waves again.
In a
moment of unexpected fulfillment, I sit on Santa’s knee.
“What’s
your name?”
“Iris.”
We
pose for our picture.
“What
would you like for Christmas, Iris?”
This
Santa is serious about his assignment. I consider what I want most in the whole
world. “It’s a hard request, Santa.”
“Go
for it.”
Eye
to eye, I spoke it.
He
sighed. “I don’t have power to do that.”
I
nodded. “But you can pray.”
“Yes,
I can.”
“Merry
Christmas, Santa.”
“Merry
Christmas, Iris.”
Dear
Reader, I believe in the first Noel Night with all my heart. God with us. Hope
of His world.
