It always seemed to happen right around the first really good snowstorm of the year and today it was snowing like the dickens. I stared at the gigantic flakes as they came twirling down from the heavens and prayed that today would finally be the day. My anticipation was so great that the five minute bus ride home from school seemed to last for an eternity. My faced pressed hard against the school bus window causing it to steam up over and over again. I strained to see if the flag on the mailbox was still up. Nope, it was down. The mail had arrived. My heart pounded and I felt as if I were going to burst.
When the bus doors finally opened, I was the first one out. I dashed down the street reaching the drab gray mailbox in a matter of seconds. I paused for a moment before opening the mailbox up and said a silent prayer.
Sometimes I wonder if God remembers all those silly little silent prayers of my youth. In each heartfelt oration, promises were made that I would never keep. Don't get me wrong, I never intended to deceive the Almighty. My heart was in the right place. I just had a really hard time keeping up on my end of the bargain once God had come through with his.
Jerking open the mailbox, my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets as I saw the very treasure I had been anticipating for weeks. Although it came wrapped in plain brown packaging, even today I remember the unearthly glow the emanated from inside the mailbox. I swallowed hard in a vain attempt to suppress my unmeasurable joy. The Christmas catalog had finally arrived!
Even though hours and hours would be spent greedily ogling the various items contained within that magical book, the first few hours were the most critical....and the most dangerous. As I quietly entered the house and tiptoed toward my bedroom, I knew that if I were to be seen by the enemy, my sister Valerie, there was a chance Mom might make me share. I could just see it now, the two of us sitting on the couch. I would want to look at all the cool new superhero toys and she would want to look at the dolls and other girl-crap like that. If I didn't let her, she would cry and probably tell a fib saying that I had been mean to her and threatened that if she told she would rue the day. Val knew how to pull all of my parent's strings and I, for some unknown reason, was decidedly less skilled in the string pulling department. So you can see why as far as I was concerned, sharing was something I simply could not do.
As I climbed up the stairs, just a few feet away from my bedroom, Valerie sprang from out of nowhere.
"Whatcha got?" she asked spying the plain brown package.
"Nothing." I said as I darted into my room and quickly shut the door.
For one brief second, victory was mine. I breathed a sigh of relief as I leaned my back against my bedroom door. I don't know why I thought I had really fooled Val. I had never been able to deceive her in the past, but I snickered as I imagined spending the first few hours leafing through that hallowed book alone circling those items I deemed worthy of my consideration as Christmas gifts. I should have realized that genetically I was unable to fool my sister but then again I had always been something of a sap.
"Momma, David's got the Christmas catalog and he said I can't look!"
Her scream was a work of art. Peppered with the occasional sob and laced with tears, even I felt sorry for her. At that moment, I knew I was done for. Any attempt that I might make to share my side of the story would be for naught for I was a rank amateur and Valerie, younger than me by a full ten months, was truly an artist.
"Oh I hate this," said Mom, sticking her head in my doorway.
"Every year, you two fight over that darn catalog. Well this year is gonna be different. You both are going to have to share if you want to look at it. Otherwise I'm just going to cancel Christmas."
I gasped. Cancel Christmas!! People shouldn't be allowed to joke about such things. Aside from one very special Saturday morning each fall when all the new cartoon shows premiered, Christmas was the best day of the year. It was a day to be cherished. It was the day that followed the night no child could sleep through. It was the day we honored the birth of a very special man, Santa Claus.
If I had been smart, I would have simply given the catalog to my sister. A wiser man, recognizing that sharing with Val really meant staring forever at the two or three pages that contained Malibu Ken, Fun-to-dress Barbie, Go-to-school Stacy, Pajama-party P.J. and, of course, Roller-skating Skipper, would have realized the irony and saved his breath. No doubt about it, if I had been clever, I would have suddenly declared in a most altruistic tone that I could wait. That the joy of a sibling was far more important than any personal gratification derived from being the first to scan the pages of the new catalog. Of course, such a declaration would have to be strategically made within earshot of either parent or, if luck would have it, both. My folks upon hearing my earnest expression of unselfishness and love would, with the wisdom of Solomon, decide that I deserved to look at the wish book first. Of course, I simply had never been that cunning.
Instead, I gave crying my best shot but my sobs fell on unsympathetic ears.
"You kids can share or I will take the damn thing and throw it away," said Mom.
I gasped. Surely Mom could not be so cold. Didn't she understand. By the way Mom was acting, you would have thought she was going to have to pay for the toys my sister and I would ever so carefully select from the catalog. I glanced over at Val, hoping that she had been equally terrified by Mom's threat. But no...my sister had this look of incredible smugness. Victory was hers and she was reveling in it.
It had become apparent even to me that Valerie had won the first round. But I was determined to have the last laugh. For the next week, I schemed and plotted out my revenge which changed pretty much on a day-to-day basis but always involved the kidnapping and subsequent burning of one of Valerie's favorite paper dolls, Wendy Whatchagonna Wear.
In between the hours and hours of exhaustive deliberation required by any finely conceived revenge plan, I found time to peruse the Christmas catalog and prepare the list which I would entrust with my Mother to deliver to Santa Claus.
As I had been an extremely fine young lad that year, I decided that my list would include one or two more items than I might include otherwise. The list included a request for a fully-poseable Batman action figure, the accompanying Batcave and Batmobile, which the small print in the catalog insisted made the Batman figure much more exciting and fun to play with.
I also requested a typewriter. Even though this particular typewriter was found in the toy section of the catalog, from what I could tell this was the real thing and a necessity for any bright child. The clincher, of course, could again be found in the small print which pointed out that it came with a genuine QWERTY keyboard much like the typewriters used at the office. Although I was unsure what QWERTY meant, I knew that if it was good enough for thousands of journalists and office secretaries, it was good enough for me.
The final item was the most treasured of all my requests, a cherry red "Astro-Flyer" snowsled. I could just picture myself on Christmas morning, racing down through the snow while others watched with a feeling of what could only be described as a mixture of pride and envy. So there you have it, with list, fully prepared and in hand, I began the long march down to the basement where Mom was doing laundry.
As I approached the laundry room, I glanced one last time at my list, making sure that I hadn't forgotten anything important. Had I included all items desired? Yes. Had I informed Santa of my general good behavior throughout the year? Yes. Had I promised him milk and cookies if he saw fit to stop by this year? Yes. Had I remembered to sign the list in recognizable handwriting? Yes. With that done, I folded the list into quarters and opened the laundry room door.
"Do you want me to help you with that?" I asked noticing that she was almost done folding clothes and even if Mom accepted my offer, it wouldn't require much of an effort on my part. Besides, it was always good idea to get on the good side of the individual who serves as courier to St. Nick.
"Well. Thank you, John David," Mom said suspiciously. "That's a sweet offer but I'm almost done here why don't you go vacuum the basement floor instead. That would be a really big help."
"Crap!!" I thought. Mom was a hard person to trick but if it helped get the list to Santa quicker, I didn't have a problem.
"Sure," I said as nonchalantly as possible.
"Oh. By the way," I added as if I had just remembered. "Would you make sure that Santa gets this list?"
Mom took the list from me and gave me a look that although I've seen many times since then I still don't know what it means.
"Hmmm," she said. "You sure have asked for an awful lot from Santa this year."
I was a little puzzled by Mom's apparent concern over the length of my list. What was the big deal anyway, I thought. It's not like she's going to have to foot the bill.
"I've been pretty good this year, so I thought I'd ask Santa for a couple of extra things," I replied, not quite sure why I was defending the size of my requests.
Mom smiled as she folded the list and handed it back to me.
"Two toys," she said matter of factly. "That's all we can afford this year."
"What do you mean we," I asked.
"Well...," said Mom. "Well...," she said again, apparently at a loss for words.
"What do you mean we," I again asked, aware that I probably wasn't going to like her response.
Suddenly Mom's eyes lit up. "You see, Santa sends us a bill."
"WHAT!!!" I couldn't believe my ears. All this time I had thought that Kris Kringle a.k.a. Santa Claus had been possibly the most generous man to ever set foot in the Sundstrom home and now, out of the blue, I'm told that once the gifts are delivered, he sends my folks a bill. A freakin' bill!!! I was in such a state of shock by this revelation and my imagination was running wild, out of control. I could see it all now, two or three days after Christmas, the whole family is in the living room watching Mod Squad when someone knocks on the door. As Dad starts to open it, three incredibly muscular elves push their way in and start kicking Dad in the kneecaps screaming "Where's the money?" over and over.
"John David....John David, are you all right?" Mom asked, bringing me back to reality.
"But what about the poor people?" I asked. "Surely Santa wouldn't send a bill to the poor people."
"Of course not. Santa only sends a bill to those that can afford it," Mom said apparently quite pleased with the way the conversation had turned out.
Suddenly I began to feel dizzy. Stuffing the list in my pocket, I dashed out of the laundry room.
Disillusioned, I headed for the only place a man could get his thoughts together. A place where no one would dare to bother you. A sanctuary. A haven. The bathroom.
Locking the door behind me, the realization that I had been deceived, misled, and pretty much lied to hit me like a ton of bricks. There was no Santa Claus. Mom and Dad had bought every single gift that I had attributed to the kindness of St. Nick. Strangely, I wasn't angry. Even though, Mom had, for all intents, murdered Santa Claus on that day, the revelation helped me to realize how much my parents loved me and how much they were willing to sacrifice for their children. Unlocking the door, I raced downstairs and gave Mom a big hug.
"Sure luv ya," I said, hoping the Mom had forgotten that she'd asked me to vacuum.
"I love you, John David," she said in a tone that assured me her words were true.
I smiled. Today had suddenly taken on significance as one of the monumental days in my life. It was truly a red letter day. A day I would look back on as a turning point as I continued my journey towards manhood.
Suddenly, I realized my much-plotted but never executed revenge against Valerie had taken a very different turn. I knew something that when divulged would ruin Val's whole week!!! Giggling, I raced upstairs, trying hard to conceal my wicked grin.
Years later, I would think back to these Christmas moments and cherish them. Even though Val usually emerged the victor from our little wars, I wouldn't have wanted things any other way. In fact, now that life has forced adulthood upon me, there are times when I would give anything to return to the innocent good-natured sibling rivalry that, at times, existed between my sister and myself. But childhood vanishes and along with its disappearance, we are forced to come to terms with our own mortality and the fragileness of life that makes it so special, so worth living. I miss you Val.