I loved Christmas as a kid. It curses me now. One time, a weekend or two after Halloween, while my parents were out, I put up and decorated the Christmas tree – it was a six foot plastic job – all by myself. They made me take it down, of course. Perhaps before, likelier after, I had a number of design plans for a new house in which there was an alcove for the Christmas tree. There was a sliding door and so the Christmas tree stayed up the whole year. All you had to do was push a button to close the door. I remember being altogether serious about these plans. I loved Christmas just that much. I couldn’t wait until I was old so that I could have my house and so that I could have my secret alcove with my perpetual Christmas tree. I was quite certain that it would be just like that. I’m the age I’d thought that I would need to be. I don’t have a Christmas tree or a secret alcove or a house.

I was steadfast in my belief that Santa Claus was real. I still rather hope that he is. Like God, or the fairy in Peter Pan, Santa Claus exists because we believe he exists. So that, in grade three, when my grade three teacher explained to us that Santa Claus was not real, I was horrified. And by the time I got home I was still not finished crying my eyes out. I remember my mom was mad at my teacher; but I don’t remember what she might have said to me. I remember my brother laughed at my intense pain. It was perhaps my first meeting with grief. Ever after, I loathed my grade three teacher. That particularly Christmas I tried extra hard to catch Santa Claus. I wanted to disprove my grade three teacher so badly. Perhaps I could completely discredit the old bat and get her fired. If she were wrong about Santa Claus, well, then, they probably wouldn’t let her be a teacher anymore. But I did not, after all, catch Santa Claus. And I did not get my grade three teacher fired.

I might after all still get my secret alcove and my perpetual Christmas tree. A good idea is a good idea.

SS