It’s Alright, Santa
The year that I turned four years old, 1946, was the year that we wrote our first letter to
Santa Claus. I deliberated long and
hard.
“I’m ready,” I told my Grandmother.
Together, we composed a letter requesting three items and
then, copying ever so carefully, I printed my name in capital letters.
“Letters are always signed,” my Grandmother had explained,
“and, of course, Santa needs to know who’s writing to him.”
She addressed an envelope and I put the precious letter
inside and licked and attached a one cent stamp.
Together, we walked up the incline to the corner of Dunbar Street and Thirty First Avenue.
She lifted me just high enough and I dropped my letter into the postbox.
The following week, my mother and grandmother shared the
news that we were going to see Santa Claus!
“Will Mary be there, too?” Such excitement!
“Mary? Do you mean
Jesus’ mother?”
“No. His friend.”
My grandmother cocked her head and looked at my mom, who was
clearly puzzling with who Mary might be.
Will she be there, too?”
I asked again. I had often heard Santa
Claus and Merry Christmas used
together and it was clear to me that they were very good friends and seldom
apart.
“There’s only one Mary,” explained my grandma, “and she was
Jesus’ mother.”
“Not Baby Jesus,” I sighed. My mom and grandma were being
very silly. “Santa Claus. Will Mary
Christmas be with him?”
“Oh, no, no.” My mother and grandmother now seemed to enjoy
my question.
Proudly, they dressed me in my two piece snowsuit: a pale
yellow, woolen affair with a matching bonnet trimmed in rabbit fur, a white fur
muff and very clean white shoes.
My Mother had made the suit and as we prepared for the
journey, they discussed how she had managed to get the fur from the Black
Market which was, somehow, connected with Under the Counter
Here I was, trimmed in my very white black market rabbit fur
and on my first visit, ever, to see Santa Claus.
At Eaton’s, on the corner of Vancouver’s Hastings and Grandville Streets,
my Mother let me pull the cord to tell the driver that we wished to
alight. The streetcar came to a
crunching, crackling stop and off we stepped.
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