by Justin Morton
Designer Editor
It is Dec. 24, 1996 and I am 7, living in Honolulu, Hawaii. I believe firmly that Santa Claus is real, has a flying, magical sleigh pulled by a team of reindeer and a belly full of Christmas cheer.
It is bedtime, and my parents have made that dreadfully clear as they order my younger brother Jacob and I to our shared bedroom to go to sleep for the night. My brother and I then lay awake for a half hour, talking about all the wonderful things that Santa could possibly bring us the next day. We then, as every kid normally does, made a pact to stay up all night and catch Santa in the middle of the night as he unloaded mounds of presents under our tree.
There was one problem with this plan. Jacob was a year younger than me and had the annoying propensity to actually go to sleep at a certain time of the night. That certain time of night just happened to be 15 minutes after we created our plan to catch Santa. This meant that I would be alone in the kidnapping of one, Mr. Claus. This was fine for me because I was the rebel of the family anyway.
An hour later, after slightly nodding off, I made way for the living room very quietly. As I crept out into the hallway, I could see that the living room light was still on, which was weird because my parents usually just left the Christmas tree lights on.
As I turned the corner to peek at the living room from behind the wall, I saw my parents sitting in the middle of the floor wrapping presents, and this sinking feeling came to the pit of my stomach as I began to question the existence of Santa Claus.
And that is when Mr. Potatohead comes into play. Sitting in front of my father was a huge Mr. Potatohead, with that big, goofy removable smile upon his face as he was swallowed up in wrapping paper. Before I could get caught peeking at all the presents, I headed back to sleep to wake the next morning and test my hypothesis.
As soon as the sun rose through the clouds and burst into my room, I dashed to go wake my parents up for Christmas morning. As soon as they trudged out to the tree, I scanned the mound of presents and found the one shaped like a big, goofy human potato hybrid. I grabbed it and looked at the tag. My fears were realized as it read: “From: Santa.”
I threw some pretty brilliant accusations at my parents that morning, and they sat me down and had a long talk about the fact that Santa did not exist and that they had been the quiet suppliers of all my Christmas presents.
To this day, my mother still loves filling my stocking, upon which she has gone to great lengths to embroider my name. She fills it with little candies and toys, and I’ll even get presents under the tree. The difference this year and the several previous is that the focal point of my Christmas experience is actually centered on the birth of Christ.
So, this Christmas break, get away from school, enjoy being done with your finals and celebrate the birth of Christ with those that you love.