Santa’s Little Secrets……..

I read this amazing story being ‘On Santa’s Team and his Little Secrets’.  I found it so thrilling, would like to share it with my blogger friends. It is a girl named Carolina Limark who has narrated this wonderful story:

‘My grandma taught me everything about Christmas.  I was just a kid.  I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb: “There is no Santa Claus“, jeered my sister.  “Even dummies know that!”  My grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been.  I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me.  I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her world-famous cinnamon buns.

Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm.  Between bites, I told her everything.  She was ready for me.  ‘No Santa Claus!’ she snorted.  ‘Ridiculous! Do not believe your sister.  That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad.  Now, put on your coat, and let’s go.’ ‘Go? Go where, Grandma?’  I asked. I had not even finished my second cinnamon bun. ‘Where’ turned out to be Kerry’s General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything.  As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars.  That was a bundle in those days.

“Take this money,” she said, “and buy something for someone who needs it.  I will wait for you in the car.” Then she turned and walked out of the store. I was only nine years old.  I had often gone shopping with my parents, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself.  The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping.  For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten dollar bill, wondering what to buy and who on earth to buy it for.  I thought of everybody I knew, my family, my friends, the kids at school, the people who went to my church.  I just could not think at all, when I suddenly thought of David Smith.  He was a kid with awful breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Polson’s grade-three class.  I remembered he did not have a coat.  I knew that because he never went out for recess during the winter.  His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough; but all we kids knew that David Smith did not have a cough, and he did not have a coat.

I fingered the ten dollar bill with growing excitement.  I would buy David a coat.  I settled on a blue corduroy one that had a hood to it.  It looked real warm, and he would like that. I did not see a price tag, but ten dollars ought to buy anyting.  I put the coat and my ten dollar bill on the counter and pushed them towards the lady behind it.  She looked at the coat, the money and me. “Is this a Christmas present for someone?” she asked kindly. “Yes”, I replied shyly.  ‘It’s for David.  He’s in my class, and he doesn’t have a coat.  The nice lady smiled at me.  I did not get any change, but she put the coat in a bag and wished me a Merry Christmas.  That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and ribbons, and write, “To David, From Santa Claus” on it.  Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy.

Then she drove me over to David Smith’s house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially one of Santa’s helpers.  Grandma parked down the street from David’s house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk.  Suddenly, Grandma gave me a nudge.  “All right, Santa Claus,” she whispered, “get going”.  I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on the his step, rang his doorbell twice and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma.  Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood David.  He looked down, looked around, picked up his present, took it inside and closed the door.

Forty-five years have not dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, besides my grandma, in David Smith’s bushes.  That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were absolutely Ridiculous and baseless.

Santa was alive and kicking and completely well….. AND WE WERE ALL ON HIS TEAM……