Last year’s Christmas posts about the various holiday traditions still stand whether it’s decorations, Christmas music, movies and TV, or food and drink. We even packed up the pups again and drove to Orange for a few days with my in-laws, though we’ll be back in Austin tomorrow for Christmas with my family.
Perhaps I’ll post a picture of this year’s tree, which relies on a far different decorating strategy than last year, though it’s still the same artificial tree.
Until then, the tale of how I learned that Santa was really my parents…
One day in the mid-70’s, seemingly months before Christmas, but possibly only a few days I snuck into my parents’ closet looking for a place to hide from whichever kid had been designated as ‘It.’ I crawled across piles of shoes and boxes and as I neared the back, I discovered some paper bags.
‘It’ was getting closer and things were happening fast, but I noticed a Wonder Woman action figure in one of the paper bags. I thought it odd that my parents had a Wonder Woman action figure, but I wasn’t going to lose a game of hide-and-seek worrying about it.
I forgot about the whole thing until Christmas morning when I saw that Santa had brought a Wonder Woman action figure to my little sister. Odd, I thought, but I filed it away until I could investigate further.
Days must have passed in which I tried to avoid the truth, but eventually I had to know. I entered the closet and snuck to the back. Naturally, there was nothing but open space. No paper bags. No Wonder Woman. No more Santa.
When I brought this up to my parents, they let me join the conspiracy and asked me not to tell my younger siblings. It only took a few minutes after that to figure out the truth about the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, and the Great Pumpkin.
James Brush is a teacher and writer who lives in Austin, TX. He tries to get outside as much as possible.
Hard to believe Christmas is already around the corner. I am ready for some Thanksgiving turkey though.