Childhood Christmas Memories

One of my first Christmas memories is of my brother screaming.

Someone - one of my father's friends, I suppose - came to our house dressed like Santa Claus. My brother was about 18 months old, and I would have been 4 1/2 years old.

Santa caused my brother to cry bloody murder when he saw the old man in the red suit and beard.

I'm not so sure I didn't join him. I wonder what it is about ol' St. Nick that terrifies little children. I know I've seen many of them sobbing like crazy when I passed by the line in the mall, back when I used to actually shop in malls.

Somewhere there is a photo of this event, of my brother screaming and me hovering anxiously. Regular readers will remember I have always been protective of my brother, so if he was sobbing, I'm sure I was getting in the way to try to console him.

I don't recall many other visits with Santa. I'm sure we went every year to see him some way or another. Maybe we saw him at the Roanoke-Salem Plaza (one of the first area malls). Or at Crossroads Mall, where there was a display that we children loved of real taxidermy deer (and Rudolph in the front with his big red nose) lifting a sleigh up into the sky. That display was there for years and years. (I spent a good hour looking online at pictures of Crossroads Mall and none had the sleigh display. You'd think someone would have taken a photo.)

I suspect sometimes we saw the jolly elf with my grandparents and my two young uncles. My mother worked and weekends were generally full up with housework and taking care of whatever she needed to do. Plus, my father had a band, and they played gigs on the weekends, so we spent a lot of time overnight at my grandparents. It is easy to imagine an outing or two included them and not my parents.

One year, I recall that neither my brother nor I received what we had asked for from Santa. I think I was about 9 and my brother 6. Anyway, apparently feeling entitled and upset with Mr. Nicholas (even though by then I had long known there was no Santa), we both moped so badly about not getting what we wanted that my mother angrily loaded us into the car and took us to this department store called Best Products where I received the Howdy Doody cowboy ventriloquist doll that I simply had to have, and my brother received whatever it was he wanted (I don't remember his toy). 

The must-have toy of 1972

My mother adamantly said we had to play with those toys and only those toys for, presumably, the rest of our lives.

Of course, we discarded the toys within a week or so. I never did learn ventriloquism.

But I sure remember how mad my mother was. I think she called us ungrateful brats for the next six months. We probably deserved it. That is the only time I remember pitching a fit about my Christmas presents. Lesson learned, I guess. Accept what you get and move on.