(1987)
By the time I was 8 I had pretty much figured out the deal about Santa. It wasn't that I didn't want to believe, but a series of things happened that lead me to lose faith in Good Ol' Sandy Claus.
The first time my faith was rocked was in 1987. I was 7 years old. We always celebrated Christmas by spending the night with my Mother's parents, my Poppa and my Grandma 'Cille. This was the first year my baby brother Keven was around. Of course the extended family wanted to play with the baby so Brian and I went to venture downstairs to play. As we did my Poppa warned us not to go play in the spare bedroom. Of course being 7, and Brian being an above average naughty 5 year old, we wanted to see what was in the bed room. At this point I wasn't even skeptical about Santa. But when we opened the door I saw a bicycle and a TV. Knowing that I really shouldn't be in there, we closed the door and pretended not to know what we just saw. I went to bed that night assuming that those gifts were from my Mom or even my Poppa. When we woke up that Christmas morning, Brian had a new bike that was labeled from Santa. I got a new TV that my parents told me Santa delivered. I asked again, did Santa bring this or did you. My Mother kindly told me, "Of course Santa brought it."
The next year, 1988, was the year that more things fell into place. You always heard talk on the playground at school about Santa. Kids would fight over whether or not he was real. It was a serious accusation! My best friend, David, is a year older than me, and was much more street smart, I guess you could say. He broke it to me around the same time that the WWF was fake, and he told me Santa was too. I fought him on both, but when my Dad confirmed that the Macho Man Randy Savage didn't really bust the Million Dollar Man in the face, David just had to be right about Old Saint Nick too!
My Dad used to work at Cottonwood Mall, in Holladay, Utah. He was in management. One day in 1988, Brian and I went to work with him. He got called away from his desk and told us to stay put in his office while he handled some business. We got bored fairly fast and started digging through his desk. After that we went into his office closest. And there it was. The nail in the coffin. Right next to an Easter Bunny costume and over sized rabbit head was a red and white Santa suit. Black boots and a black belt with bells. A red hat with white trimming was on the floor, right on top of a big, white, fake beard. The mall Santa was a phony. The jig was up.
I remember driving with my Mom. It was raining. She was playing a Judd's cassette tape in the car. I told her very nonchalantly, "I know the truth." "Know the truth about what", she said with a confused look in her eyes. "About Santa, he's not real, there really isn't a Santa." She asked me who told me that, and I explained the playground banter, the suit in my Dad's office, and about how none of it makes sense (I never fessed up about seeing the gifts). I explained that sometimes my friends at school who were bad kids, got expensive gifts, but some of my really good friends, who were poor, got hardly anything. Why would Santa give the mean kid a Nintendo, but my poor friend got socks? I was also confident that no matter what kind of magic he used, there was no way he could hit every house in one night. I let it all fly. My stomach dropped. I was nervous to say it all, but also felt some relief. Then she said it, "You're right."
I was right? Damn. I was kind of hoping she'd tell me otherwise. Debate my answers and explain my questions. She said, "Santa is in us all." "I'm your Santa and one day you'll be Santa to your kids." She explained to me that as the oldest I had to play along, which I always did, and never tell my siblings. I even got to drink Santa's milk and split the cookies left behind with my Poppa.
When we all woke up that Christmas morning my Poppa was reading a newspaper. The family was all talking and my Mom had a tear in her eye. They called me over and I sat down at the table. I'm not sure if it was on the front page, but in the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper, in bright red print, was the headline: "Yes Matthew, There Really Is a Santa Claus."I asked right away if they did that. Everyone said they didn't. My Grandparents were all smiles, but promised me they had nothing to do with it. Could it be he was really talking to me? My Mom asked me if I believed now, and honestly I did. To this day, I still do.
