Honey gets me into more crazy capers than the Scooby Doo gang. But I learned a long time ago that life is just a lot more fun when I play a long. Sometimes I wonder if she regrets the crazy things she convinces me to do because when I “buy in” I go “all in”. I thought about this on the first Sunday of December, but let me back up a year and explain the situation.
Last year Honey bought me a Santa costume and asked me to wear it with the grandkids so we could celebrate 25 days of Christmas. Each day in December leading up to Christmas Day, I would put on the Santa suit, or at least the Santa hat, and we would go see the grandchildren and give them a small little Christmas gift. Before you choke on your hot chocolate, the gifts were not all toys or expensive gifts, they were things like books, clothes, socks, candy, a few toys, and anything their parents had indicated they needed. It was our attempt to make the grandkids as Christmas crazy as we are.
This year, we both agreed, 25 days of Christmas is A LOT, so we dialed it back to the four Sundays of Advent leading up to Christmas Day. Each Sunday in December we got together with the little ones to have cookies with Santa. They got a little treat of some kind, we read Christmas stories, wore Santa’s Helpers pajamas, ate cookies, and helped Gumbo Claus and Honey give gifts to other people. Last year was about them falling in love with Christmas, this year was about learning to love to give.
Our first Sunday was a success, but after we finished we took Valerie to Vanderbilt Hospital to be with our precious little Marley Gras who was in the NICU unit. The days following her birth had been a mixture of joy, exhaustion, and distress at the family having to be scattered in different places. We needed some joy. Honey jokingly asked me, “Are you going to wear the Santa suit?” and I immediately shot back, “Absolutely!” She laughed until she realized I wasn’t laughing with her. “Are you serious?” she asked, which I answered by climbing into the car in full Santa regalia.
The whole drive up the interstate to Nashville I caught her sneaking glimpses at me with a, “What have I done?” look on her face. She could barely contain herself when we started walking through the parking garage toward the hospital. The more we walked, the more I could barely contain the feeling that was welling up inside me. It was not lost on me that we were about to walk into one of the saddest places in all of the world: a children’s hospital full of sick babies and kids fighting for their lives and the parents and grandparents who are praying that they could give theirs if it would save them. I have known a great many nurses who work in the OB Department and in Children’s Hospitals and let me tell you they are angels with invisible wings. In the best moments they are taking care of precious little babies, which is one of life’s greatest gifts, but is also one of the hardest and most exhausting things in life…..and they are doing it for a pod full of babies, not just one or two. But on their worst days they are doing everything humanly possible to save a baby’s life and sometimes that’s not enough. I cannot even begin to fathom how those servants of God can function with any degree of joy when they are on the front lines of the worst thing that can happen in life, the death of a child. They must be made of something from God that all of us didn’t get.
At first, my jolly journey in costume was just some fun intending to include my newest granddaughter in our crazy family traditions, but entering the building it became something else. It started in the parking garage just before the elevator when someone gleefully exclaimed, “Santa!” Once inside, I was repeatedly met with huge, full body smiles, waves, and shouts of “It’s Santa!” or “Hi Santa!” Keep in mind, this is all from adults, not the children. Overworked, underpaid, fully stressed, exhausted adults. Almost everyone of them lit up like a child on Christmas morning when they saw Santa coming. One nurse was FaceTiming her daughter and enthusiastically told her, “Santa Claus is here! At my work!” She then ran up to me and held the phone toward me for her three year old to see, and she was equally enthralled. Moments later as we walked down the hall past a nurses station, the nurses exploded with joy and laughter. One shouted, “See I told you he was here” and another exclaimed what I assume was an homage to the movie Elf, “I know him”.
Suddenly, I began to feel a weighty burden, a responsibility. When you go out in public as Santa you have to be your best self, like better than your best. Everyone loves to see Santa, but no one wants to see a rude Santa, or a mean Santa, or a selfish Santa, or even a sad Santa. The responsibility was something I started taking seriously very quickly, but what overshadowed it was what a privilege it was to wear the suit because people love Santa. If you think the world is an ugly, angry, rude, hateful, scary place — and it most certainly can be — go out into it as Santa and you will see the other side of the world. You will experience people at their best and see their best come to the surface. Smiles, joy, laughter, hugs, from strangers will cover you like falling snow. I found myself quietly singing the lyrics to Louis Armstrong’s, “‘Zat You Santa Claus?”
“Sure is dark out, ain't the slightest spark out.
Cold winds are howling, or could that be growling?
My legs feel like straws…We don't believe in no goblins today. Is that you, Santa Claus?
Are you bringing a present for me? Something pleasantly pleasant for me?”
Even if just for a moment, the bright red suit cut through the gray of a cold winter day, in a dark place where there isn’t a lot of joy, and people forgot their troubles and smiled.
I’m not making any promises or commitments, but I gotta be honest, going out in public as Santa was one of the best things I’ve ever done and I find myself wanting to do it again, but first I want to get better at it. I told Honey, “Next year I want a better suit, like a more authentic and higher quality Santa suit.” I’ve got the “belly that jiggles like a bowl full of jelly when I laugh” covered already, but my beard needs a lot more work and a little more gray, but hey, I’ve got a year to prepare.
I know our culture of economics and commerce loves to turn the page on one holiday before the day is even over (I literally saw businesses taking down Christmas decorations and putting out Valentine’s Day products on Christmas Eve), but Christmastide doesn’t end until January 6th, so Cupid will just have to sheathe his arrows for one more week. And if we’re going to let one holiday bleed into another let it be Christmas and New Year’s Day instead. After all, Christmas is about the birth of a little baby who made all things new, and whose coming instigated people to change their ways for the better. Sounds an awful lot like the symbolism we’ve attached to baby new year and the making of resolutions.
Maybe that could be our New Year’s resolution, to be more like Santa Claus all year round. To be someone who is joyful and brings joy to all they encounter. To be someone who is only interested in giving to others. Either way, whether you are done with Christmas and already focused on Happy Valentine’s Day or Happy New Year, or just happy the holidays are over, let me just say, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night……see you next year ;)
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