Off The Bus and Into Line...

                                                       It’s Alright, Santa

continued:

So, in my black market white rabbit fur trimmed bonnet, my white rabbit fur muff, my pale yellow snowsuit and my very clean, very white shoes I rode the bus... 

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.

Between the adults, holding their hands, I bounced across the street.  Crossing roads at random - anywhere that you happened to be, was a way of life in the Vancouver of the 1940s.  Crosswalks were few and largely unheeded. 

A huge crowd craned and teetered trying to see the spectacle in Eaton’s large front window.

“Ho! Ho! Ho! Hello little girl,” came a voice from nowhere.

A thrill of disbelief replaced the anticipation that had been bubbling in me ever since it had been announced that we were going to town to see Santa.

“Is that him?” I whispered.

“Yes,” said my Mom.  “He’s in the window.  If I lift you, you can take a quick look and then we have to go inside and get in line so that you can talk to him.”

She hoisted me over her shoulders and there he was – exactly as I knew he would be: a large man with a curly white beard and wearing a red suit, trimmed, I thought, in the very same fur that I had on my jacket and bonnet.  He was sitting on a king’s throne, surrounded by white puffy clouds and silver stars and two real elves stood beside him handing out candy canes and little parcels wrapped in shiny paper.  Mounds of brilliantly wrapped gifts, dolls of all descriptions sat on silvery shelves and snowy ledges and a whistling little train set scooted around the window.

As my Mother put me back on the sidewalk, I could still hear his booming voice. Santa’s conversations were being broadcast to the delighted audience on the street outside of Eaton’s window.

Into the store we went.  My mother removed my bonnet and coat and placed me in the cue, waiting to see Santa Claus.

“You just stand, here,” she said.  “They’ll tell you when it’s your turn.”

Stay tuned...                                                                                               

Copyright © 2013, Robyn Gerland