By Susan Moser Robinson
Tess, my granddaughter who learned to spell before she talked at age 2 and who read all the Harry Potter books—twice—at age 8, didn’t believe in Santa Claus until she was 6 years old.
Although her parents were raised with traditional attitudes about Santa, they did not buy into perpetuating a myth of a mysterious overweight man descending chimneys with myriads of toys.
Tess never questioned what was going on around her during the holidays and happily waited for Nana to arrive on Christmas morning with a cache of surprises. The year after I married Nick, things changed.
Nick loves Christmas—especially the toys. Well, maybe, especially the Santa part. Nick had trouble accepting the low-key kind of grandparental-privilege celebrating Santa that I had. Tess, at age 6, along with her brother Ivan, 3, gazed with wonder at Nick’s collection of almost 100 Christmas water globes and listened intently to his Santa stories.
Tess was skeptical. Ivan was charmed.
One evening, while I was cajoling Ivan into eating his supper, the phone rang. When I answered, I heard a familiar voice ask for Ivan, who was elated someone was calling him; Tess was curious and quietly jealous. When he hung up, Tess demanded, “Who was that?!” Ivan stated with awe, “It was Santa. He told me to eat my dinner,” and dove into his pasta with determination.
A couple weeks later, Tess waited for a moment alone with Papa Nick and asked him if he had “the list.” “What list?” he asked. “You know, the naughty and nice list,” she prompted and broke into song “You better watch out….” It seems that her analytical mind was trying to figure out if maybe Nick was actually THE Nick.
The non-believer was becoming a believer. I was going to get in trouble with Tess’s parents, but Nick couldn’t stop.
That same weekend, the Silverton fire truck was picking up food donations for SACA and with Santa on board to wave at neighborhood kids. The fire truck missed our street, so we loaded into the car and chased it down on the next street. Tess wouldn’t get out of the car while Nick hoisted Ivan onto the fire truck to get a hug and a candy cane. She said that couldn’t possibly be the real Santa Claus. Why would he be in Silverton on a Saturday afternoon the week before Christmas?
When Ivan climbed into the car with his candy cane and declared he’d told Santa he wanted a pirate ship for Christmas, big tears ran down Tess’ face. Nick put the car in gear, chased down the fire truck once again, and waved to Santa who came over and gave a candy cane to Tess through the car window and asked her what she wanted for Christmas. “A soft yellow stuffed kitty,” she said with tears of relief.
Christmas morning, we watched Tess open her stuffed lion and a letter from Santa explaining it had been too late to make a kitty but he hoped she liked the lion. Nick sat on the floor helping Ivan put together his pirate ship. Two happy Santa converts.
The following Christmas, those kids became convinced Santa actually lives in Silverton. After all, why else would we have his picture painted on the side of a building? We went to the Silverton Together kids’ Christmas party and they patiently waited in line to see Santa.
A couple weeks before Christmas last year, at age 8, Tess declared that I had tricked her, written the letter from Santa, and absolutely, there is no such person as Santa Claus. She had asked her mommy, who totally agreed with her.
Later, at dinner, 5-½ year-old Ivan said, “All who believe in Santa, raise your hand!” Ivan, Nick and I enthusiastically put our hands in the air.
Tess looked warily at us and raised up a limp-wrist hand—halfway. In his own way, Ivan explained to his sister that everybody can believe what they want to believe, but that he thinks Christmas is way more fun if you believe in Santa.
And then something magical happened this past summer. The 45th parallel sign was erected at the end of Adams Avenue—our street. That means we live halfway between the North Pole and the Equator—the perfect place for Santa to live when he’s not busy getting ready for Christmas.
Tess told us in her first week of fourth grade she raised her hand in class to tell everyone that her Nana and Papa Nick live at the 45th parallel. Hmmm… is the search for Santa on again?
