Santa Claus: The addict

CH 2

PART 2

YES VIRGINIA, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS

All my adult life, people have been telling me that there is no Santa. But my parents have always said I just need to ignore the naysayers and hold onto my beliefs. "Santa is as real as you and I," my mother says whenever I start to lose faith. I live, eat and breathe Christmas. And I've always tried to be nice, not naughty. And every Christmas Eve I religiously leave Santa milk and cookies on the table near the fireplace. And as a reward, up until I was 26, Santa left presents under my tree every single Christmas! Not just any old presents, but the presents I asked for in the letters I sent to him at the North Pole. But, Santa's got a funny sense of humor. I once asked him for a new house... I got that idea from an old movie. In response, he sent me a little dollhouse! It was tiny, but beautifully made, and looked almost exactly like what I'd pictured in my mind. That Santa, what a joker! I loved that dollhouse (I can see it right now from where I'm writing, the centerpiece of my enormous holiday display).

Three years ago my mean younger sister, Stephanie, called me on Christmas Eve and told me something that ruined everything. She said my parents had been flying across the country every Christmas eve, ever since I left home, picking the lock of my tiny little New York apartment, sneaking in, eating the cookies and drinking the milk and leaving presents in my stocking and under my tree addressed, "To: Virginia. From: Santa." Can you imagine my sister telling such a heinous lie? But sadly, I believed her for one hot minute. That sounded exactly like the kind of thing my parents would do. They were crazy for Christmas. I should have called them but I didn't. I bawled like a baby and threw out my Christmas tree. Literally, I just opened the window and pushed it out into the street below. I didn't make any cookies either. Later on, I decided that's probably what pissed Santa off the most. He loved my cookies!

When I woke up Christmas morning, I had a shock in store. There was a lump of coal sitting on the floor where my tree had been. Just sitting there, mocking me. I knew, right then, right there, that my sister was a liar. But it was too late. I'd rejected Santa!

I was naughty!

That was pretty much the worst day of my life. I fell into such a deep funk over the next few months that I got fired from my job at the Christmas store. When that happened, I had a bit of a... I guess you'd call it a nervous breakdown. I don't have any memory of what I did, but I woke up one day in a... facility. The doctors said I'd been ranting about Santa for days and days, opening windows and shouting out into the snowy air that I was a fool and begging for Santa's forgiveness. The doctors wouldn't let me go until I pretended that Santa wasn't real. But I got out in February, totally cured, and began my long search for Santa.

Okay... maybe I wasn't totally cured. I sort of went through a slightly confused time after that. One day I saw a stranger on the street that looked just like Santa. He was a fat fifty-something with a big white beard. He had this jolly look in his eye, even though he was obviously homeless. He even smoked from a little pipe, just like in that poem about him. I became convinced that he was the actual, real Santa. Why was he homeless? Well, it was spring, I reasoned. The elves were making toys, and Santa was taking a break. It made sense to me at the time, but that just tells you how discombobulated I was back then. I struck up a conversation with him, and of course he denied being Santa. But that's just what the real Santa would do. He was stinky and hungry, so I invited him over to my apartment to bathe while I baked him some cookies.

He had no idea why a pretty 27-year-old girl would invite him into her home, but he didn't object. I made his favorite chocolate cookies while humming 'jingle bells' and listening to him splashing around in the tub. He stayed in there a long time, enjoying the hot water, which I guess was a bit of a luxury for him. My first batch of cookies came out of the oven. I was so eager to give him a taste, that I took a plateful into the bathroom without even knocking.