I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
Dec. 25th, 2004 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqMy time served at St. Raymond (my elementary school) is something I'm unlikely to relate here unless I want to scare people off with the amount of bitterness and bile I can produce. I have but one good story about my time there and, it being Christmas, here it is.
Back in the day, the school had several kiddie concerts a year. We would practice singing old fogey songs (this was the seventies, so our parents were listening to the pop music of the forties and fifties) then we would do it in front of all our parents on these big nights. Christmas, and Christmas carols were a theme we returned to year after year.
Do schools still do this stuff? Can they afford to? Lacking children, I just don't know.
Anyway, after the concert one year, we all got in line to see Santa Claus. This was done between the stage and the seats that the parents sat in. It was in order by class, so the ones and twos went first, the threes and fours next, and the fives and sixes last (St. Raymond was a tiny school, the classes combined two grades each. There were only three teachers and one principle).
Now I was always a pretty cynical kid. I had by this time (grade five) twigged to the fact that their was no literal Santa Claus. I was pretty smug in that knowledge as were the other kids in my cohort. I waited for the farce to be over, not really paying attention to what was going on in front of me.
The younger kids were, of course, overjoyed to see Santa Claus there. I was about five positions away from Santa when I noticed.
Santa Claus was my Dad.
I was agog. Speechless. Dumfounded. When it was my turn, I'm not sure what I said, though I'm sure it was pretty stupid. I wandered away with a silly grin on my face.
It remains the single positive memory I have of the hell hole that turned me into a walking victim for the next twenty years.
For my Dad's part, he caught the Santa Claus bug. He played Santa for assorted friends for years and years afterwards. He even had his own Santa suit made. He loved it, but then he loved everything about Christmas.
Merry Christmas Santa, from your son James.
Back in the day, the school had several kiddie concerts a year. We would practice singing old fogey songs (this was the seventies, so our parents were listening to the pop music of the forties and fifties) then we would do it in front of all our parents on these big nights. Christmas, and Christmas carols were a theme we returned to year after year.
Do schools still do this stuff? Can they afford to? Lacking children, I just don't know.
Anyway, after the concert one year, we all got in line to see Santa Claus. This was done between the stage and the seats that the parents sat in. It was in order by class, so the ones and twos went first, the threes and fours next, and the fives and sixes last (St. Raymond was a tiny school, the classes combined two grades each. There were only three teachers and one principle).
Now I was always a pretty cynical kid. I had by this time (grade five) twigged to the fact that their was no literal Santa Claus. I was pretty smug in that knowledge as were the other kids in my cohort. I waited for the farce to be over, not really paying attention to what was going on in front of me.
The younger kids were, of course, overjoyed to see Santa Claus there. I was about five positions away from Santa when I noticed.
Santa Claus was my Dad.
I was agog. Speechless. Dumfounded. When it was my turn, I'm not sure what I said, though I'm sure it was pretty stupid. I wandered away with a silly grin on my face.
It remains the single positive memory I have of the hell hole that turned me into a walking victim for the next twenty years.
For my Dad's part, he caught the Santa Claus bug. He played Santa for assorted friends for years and years afterwards. He even had his own Santa suit made. He loved it, but then he loved everything about Christmas.
Merry Christmas Santa, from your son James.
