Sticks and Ashes

Everyone says that Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. If only that were always the case. Growing up, I enjoyed the holiday, but I never truly felt like it was overly wonderful. And never was I more disappointed with it than the year "Santa" gave us sticks and ashes. 

Tracy and I were 10 and Fred was 11 the year "Santa" brought us these gifts from our grandparents' wood burning stove. Needless to say, I felt disappointed and angry that this was my holiday experience. 

That particular year, we had been fighting a lot, but it felt like no more than previous years. Still, our parents were not happy and kept threatening that Santa would notice and we wouldn't get presents if we continued to be naughty. 

The minute I opened my box and saw what was inside, I felt angry and certain that Santa wouldn't be this mean. That was the year I stopped believing in Santa Claus. I may have been older than most, but my belief in him was something to hold onto to make the holiday special. But this act of getting sticks and ashes felt like a betrayal and something evil - definitely something my mom would do. We opened those gifts before our morning chores. Then, it was business as usual. We had to go out and do our chores without being angry or disappointed because that would cause more problems and backlash from one of the adults. 

After we completed morning chores, we sat down for our break and were asked if we'd like our "real" gifts from Santa. We were told that he had given them to our parents because we were naughty. But even these gifts turned out to be nothing special. We each received a new backpack for school and a handheld game that was relatively cheap at the time. Later that day, I was snooping around in my parents' bedroom when I saw the receipts for our backpacks and games. This solidified my suspicion that these gifts were bought and that Santa was not this evil person, but rather a made-up person to try to make children behave better. 

The hardest part of Christmas was when the winter break was over and we had to return to school. All the other kids were bragging about all their awesome new gifts while we were like, "Yeah, I got this new backpack so I could carry my school supplies..."

Merry Christmas to us.