So I had a tumultuous weekend, which I won't go into here, but suffice to say this:

1) There's nothing like having a 300-strong choir sing the Messiah at you in Royal Albert Hall, and it gets even better when you are able to make up your own lyrics to it.
2) Just when you think you have had enough depression, life hands you more.
3) Sometimes you don't need a little black dress, you need a long slinky red one.

When I was 6 years old I learned that Santa Claus didn't exist. And I didn't learn it from catching my family out (although I really should have been more clever and understood why it was that one room of the house was off-limits just before Christmas. Jesus, Helen. Put some backbone into that thinking of yours.)

Oh no. I learnt it from my best friend and her mother.

We were in the car, my best friend and I in the backseat. My best friend's name was, actually, the same name as mine, and we had nearly the exact same last name (to avoid mass confusion, let's call her Helen Squared). She too was a military child, although I was an Air Force officer's child and she was an Army enlisted man's daughter. There was a real class distinction there. One group did not associate with the other group. It was some kind of unwritten law, punishable by a lifetime in olive green fatigues if you broke the law. We both lived in McChord AFB in Washington, she and her family living just down the road from me.

Helen Squared had lived for a few years in North Carolina and had a thick maple syrup put-on accent. Her mother, Babe, was also from North Carolina and had an even thicker accent. I thought they sounded exotic, like creatures you encounter at a zoo.

Helen Squared was everything I was not. She was loud, brash and blond. Her favorite show was the Dukes of Hazzard and she wore cowboy boots and a red cowboy hat, like the one Gertie had in E.T.. Her mom let her have those plastic high heels all little girls want (although mine never would, so I nicked Helen Squared's and got in trouble for it. I suppose that's why I love high heels so much today, and also why I have never again committed petty larceny.) And even more so, her hair feathered. For real. This being 1980, it was the thing to have feathered blond Farrah Fawcett hair. Her hair did it. My hair, too thick to have any shape other than straight down my back, didn't.

You just had to bow down to those with feathered hair. It was Darwinism at its best.

Helen Squared had a boyfriend named Justin whom she would allow to chase her around the playground. It occured twice a day at recess, a little blond Southerner interrupting games of dodgeball (now there's a new version of masochism for you) and tetherball as she came screaming though the games, glancing heavily behind her shoulder. He never caught her, which is a good thing, as I imagine she hadn't really thought the whole thing through and hadn't figured out what she would do if he did finally catch her.

Kind of like modern women still think about today.

I never really understod what Helen Squared saw in me. I was dark to her light, in everything from hair color to attitude. I didn't have a cowboy hat and I didn't want one. She had a mental younger brother named Zed whom I thought was a suitable candidate for medical experiments. She had masses of friends, and I never really did. She was sunshine to my gloomy rain. But she liked me, she was the first person I played doctor with, and we were friends for years. She was my best friend, my single source of aggravation and envy, and my competition.

She's also part of the duo that killed Santa Claus.

I'm not sure where we were going that day. All I can remember is Babe was driving and Helen Squared and I were in the back seat. Helen Squared and I were singing along to the radio as we always did-Olivia Newton-John's Xanadu and Pat Benatar's Hit Me With Your Best Shot (the 80's were a very good time to be an obnoxious kid that sang off-key). It was a week away from Christmas, and we were discussing presents.

"I need the Barbie Dream House." Helen Squared said with authority.

"Me too." I piped up. A shimmering pink plastic wonder, the A-frame Barbie Dream House, a town house with it's kitsch yellow floors, white plastic walls and flowerboxes full of tatty purple and white fake flowers was the kind of thing that kept us up at night with longing. A marvel of Mattel magic, it was only the best for Barbie and her androgynous Ken (we know. We checked.) I already had the hot tub that burped bubbles when you pressed on the rubber air button and foamed all over the place. This would be the pinnacle. This was reaching and achieving Barbie glory.

It was the place where Barbie's white plastic high heeled shoes that fell off when she walked were meant to be. It was the place where we could have her hard pink plastic butterfly-covered bed and park her yellow remote controlled (with a wire) Corvette. It was where her striped 70's couch and pink vanity set should go, the vanity set complete not with a mirror, but with a strip of foil. It was the place we could do surgery-Barbies always had bubbles in their legs (which I later learned was due to the imperfection of the plastic molding process) but which Helen Squared and I believed were tumors, so we would always do dramatic emergency surgery on Barbie's legs, hoping she would pull through, with Ken pacing the carpet to and fro in his stiff jointed way worried about her survival.

I didn't know this then, but that architectural marvel would be under the Christmas tree for me that year and would rack up thousands of hours of use before I outgrew it and it got boxed up and thrown away, a broken wonder that captured my imagination and turned me into the skilled bubble-plastic leg surgeon that I am today.

"I want a pony, too." Helen Squared announced. I scoffed at her folly. Just because she had the cowboy hat didn't mean she knew how to ride. Bitch.

"I asked Santa for a bike." I say, smiling.

We stop at a stoplight. Babe and Helen Squared look at me, Babe's eyes blue in the rearview mirror.

"You do know there's no such thing as Santa." Babe says.

I feel my heart lurch. What is this? An adult decrying the existence of the good guy? A grown-up telling me not to believe in something they always advocated? What was going on? Was I in another dimension?

"There's no such thing as Santa." Helen Squared said patronizingly. "It's just our parents."

They were looking at me, expectantly. Helen Squared's hair was feathered perfectly that day. Perfectly. You could not argue with Aqua Net that good.

"You did know that there's no such thing as Santa Claus, right Helen?" Babe asked again. I feel under intense pressure. On the one hand, Santa is my main man. On the other, why would they lie, why would they take Santa from me?

And all at once, under the intense scrutiny of the feathered hair, I knew what I had to answer.

"Sure." I say, killing Santa Claus with one syllable. "I know he's not real." I didn't know what to do. I feel like the Mafia-someone is alive and breathing, only I hold my hand up and sniff: "You're dead to this family now, Clausy. You are not a part of this family any longer." This would bring into play serious questions about the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, issues I wasn't emotionally equipped to address that day, shattered as I was over the loss of Santa.

Helen Squared tosses her feathered hair back over her shoulder. The light changes and we move forward, and if I swivel my head around I can see out the back window a sadly jolly guy in red, waving goodbye in the middle of the street as I drive away and leave him behind me forever.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 08:53 AM | Comments (23) | Add Comment
Post contains 1442 words, total size 8 kb.

1 Babe needed to be shot - no slowly killed in some horrible way. What an awful thing to do! Horrible woman.

Posted by: lostdawill at December 20, 2004 10:29 AM (WFuJo)

2 Oh man, what your friend's mom did to you in that car should be a crme of some sort. I remember being a bit older than you, maybe 8 or 9 and being devastated when my brother caught my mom eating Santa's cookies. It was essentially the end of part of my childhood for me too.

Posted by: Kate at December 20, 2004 11:10 AM (xyFwg)

3 I don't remember how or when I found out. It might have been courtesy of my older brother. That seems to ring a bell anyway. One thing that I learned many, many years later though is this: It's okay to stop believing in Santa Clause because he still believes in you.

Posted by: Jim at December 20, 2004 11:46 AM (GCA5m)

4 I've been thinking a lot this year that it will probably be the last Christmas my youngest will believe in Santa. It's depressing as hell. I'd kill some bitch who ruined that for me, er, him. Babe should be drawn and quartered!

Posted by: Ice Queen at December 20, 2004 01:52 PM (F6gzK)

5 Your mom should have shaved little Helen Squared's head bald. That would have been an even trade: your Santa Clause joy for her hair joy. And the timing would have been perfect too: you only had 1 or 2 years left to believe in Santa, and it would have been 1 or 2 years before her hair was Farah-like again. Angel2 started to tell one of her friends Santa isn't real, and I put the brakes on it immediately. That's what Babe should have done.

Posted by: Solomon at December 20, 2004 01:52 PM (k1sTy)

6 What's this? No Santa? Parents eating the cookies? ARRRRGH! I am undone.

Posted by: Brass at December 20, 2004 01:52 PM (6TLEO)

7 Babe's a bitch--an unkind soul even if she is from North Carolina. What she did is wrong. I bet Helen Squared now lives in a trailer and is sporting a feathered mullet :-)

Posted by: Marie at December 20, 2004 03:24 PM (PQxWr)

8 You didn't leave him behind forever. Just for a while. You've come back to him, and he's come back to you.

Posted by: amy t. at December 20, 2004 03:45 PM (zPssd)

9 Shit. I'm crying. Damn you, Babe. Damn you!

Posted by: Elizabeth at December 20, 2004 05:24 PM (thxxF)

10 Boy what I wouldn't give to Bitch Slap Babe and her helmut haired spawn at this moment! All in the Christmas spirit of course. Whore, whore ho!

Posted by: CarolC at December 20, 2004 05:59 PM (VKsjd)

11 My grandchild, who's 9, has known that Santa isn't real for several years, but refuses to admit it. She's not dumb, she still gets presents from him. This year, though, she's doing a final test, saying that if Santa is real then he'll bring her a laptop for Christmas, figuring that's just ridiculous. Guess what her father bought from his company that was getting rid of their old models? Should make for an interesting Christmas morning.

Posted by: bigdocmcd at December 20, 2004 05:59 PM (AkmDD)

12 It's a good thing it's so freaking cold here, 'cause this post just made me hotter than hell. Fucking people. I swear.

Posted by: Jennifer at December 20, 2004 06:50 PM (jl9h0)

13 I'm just at a loss for words. That was just a despicable thing to do. The coldest spot in hell is being reserved for that woman.

Posted by: Easy at December 20, 2004 07:00 PM (U89mk)

14 I found out the same way. I went to a Christmas craft bazaar at our school with my friend Charlotte and her mom. We were on our way home and discussing Christmas when her mom looked at me (as if it had just hit her) and said, "OH you don't believe in Santa anymore, do you Elizabeth? You know he's not real, right?" Ummmm, noooo I didn't and I was horrified but, of course I had to save face and say "Yes, I've known for quite awhile." She dropped me off at home and I walked in the house tear faced bc I felt so embarrassed and sad. I wondered how many other kids at school knew when I didn't. My other friends talked about Santa. My family talked about Santa. Our teacher always talked about Santa and she was the coolest, so of course it was true! I have to say, when I am back in my hometown for the holidays or any other occasion, I still glare at the little white house on Pemberton Drive that Charlotte and her parents used to live in. I never forgot that the bitch ruined Christmas for me that year!

Posted by: EJ at December 20, 2004 08:07 PM (MTqwP)

15 I can't believe she did that and you were SIX! Ten or twelve maybe but SIX!?!?! Evil evil evil.

Posted by: Flikka at December 20, 2004 10:30 PM (puvdD)

16 I dont feel the same hatred towards Babe as the others do...I found out that santa wasnt real when I woke up and my Dad was putting the presents on the end of my bed.But I was suprisingly relieved that my parents had done the kindness and not some total stranger.When my son was born,I had no desire to lie to him about anything...A few yrs ago when my grandson was 3 we were in the mall and saw a santa so I asked him if he wanted to go and talk to him...he went up to santa and pulled on his gloves and said in a very loud voice*wheres your claws* ...(santa claus) I believe in telling kids the truth cos they wont like you for lying to them anyway.

Posted by: butterflies at December 21, 2004 12:50 AM (sUcgQ)

17 A somewhat warped version of a christmas song... http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=971224 Its a fairly old web comic wherein a mini-loop (rabbit) as an on going feud with Santa Claus...

Posted by: LarryConley at December 21, 2004 06:20 AM (y5h4n)

18 God that was just pure MEAN to tell a 6 year old that there is no Santa Claus! I wonder if Helen Squared is a cynical, unhappy grown up (thanks to her mother).

Posted by: Irene at December 21, 2004 12:58 PM (9qJGI)

19 I'm with Butterflies; we always taught Angel1 & Angel2 that Santa was fake (er, just kidding Brass and Elizabeth , and they never cared. We teach our girls it's never right to lie, and I thought lying to them for years would be a little hypocritical (not to mention wrong . But I still don't think it's appropriate for my daughters or me to "enlighten" other children if their parents don't want them enlightened.

Posted by: Solomon at December 21, 2004 01:21 PM (k1sTy)

20 I was around 6 and had heard some kids talking about it at school. Immediately suspicious, I went home and asked my mom if it was true, that there was no Santa. "What do you think?" she asked right back with a funny little lilt to her voice. Right then I knew it *was* true. Just by the way her voice suddenly sounded so weird, like the doctor right before he had to give me a shot. "Now, this won't hurt, hold still." I crawled behind the couch with my beloved Marguerite Henry books and stayed there all day, dreaming of horses and trying to hide my sorrow over Santa. I was prepared with my kids. Santa only brought ONE big present to our house. All the others were from us or other family members. We did the cookies and milk bit, made sure the fireplace was ready for Santa to drop into and took them to the mall for their picture with The Man. When it was their turn to start getting suspicious and they finally asked me, I replied cryptically that kids who didn't believe in Santa didn't get the big Santa gift any more. It was totally up to them to either believe or not. Sometimes I had to repeat this so they'd understand what I was saying, but they would finally get it. They loved this idea. I don't know why it worked so well but it did. It was like letting them into the adult world, but only a little bit. I wasn't taking Santa from them, I was giving them a choice. Needless to say they believed all the way into their teens. Tongue in cheek, of course. They got pretty defiant about it, too, when friends would come over and they would talk about their Santa present. "But..but..." their friends would say, all bewildered. "But surely you don't still believe in Santa!" "SHHH!" they'd retort. "In this house, if you don't believe in Santa, you don't get the BIG PRESENT! Got it? Belief is all! Now, don't wreck everything with your loose mouth, okay?" Believing in Santa was fun and brought good things. Denying Santa would bring no Big Present and a loss of all the other fun customs. So I allowed the kids to keep Santa as long as they felt like it. As far as I know, they still do. :-)

Posted by: Amber at December 21, 2004 03:02 PM (zQE5D)

21 We have handled it the same way as Amber. Our daughter, 9, questions, and our answer is always the same - it's up to her if she believes or not. But we remind her that Santa brings her gifts and fills her stocking, so she continues to believe. Of course, she probably doesn't actually believe anymore, but she let's us believe she believes so she still gets Santa gifts! :-) We've never actually told her he existed to begin with. We've discussed it being a wonderful thing - the spirit of giving, and the thought that there is someone that tries their hardest to give them a special gift each year, etc. Of course, this year, when our son, 6, asked how Santa manged to make ALL those toys, Mikaela, in her 9 year old wisdom, informed her brother that Santa buys them all at Walmart unless they are homemade gifts - those the elves make!

Posted by: Holly at December 21, 2004 10:46 PM (QbyU1)

22 I was about the same age... my santa was killed by two sisters that never believed in him. They told me "Good Christian girls know that Santa is not real. Thats why you don't know, you aren't a good Christian girl like us... thats also why we aren't allowed to play with you very often". Yeah I think I am still way damaged from the whole thing... good Christian girls my...

Posted by: Jessica at December 21, 2004 11:19 PM (jiaJ/)

23 I wasn't terribly observant as a child (I'm still not--unfortunately), and so I didn't believe my friend Justin when he said it was just my parents--at age 11 or so. I'm glad that nobody told me until then, and I'm glad that I didn't believe him for at least another year.

Posted by: Marian at December 22, 2004 04:01 PM (oQc0n)

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