Who You Callin' Santa?

A recurring seasonal neurosis stems from one of the darkest stains on my otherwise happy childhood: I outed Santa Claus.

We Jews are a lonely lot on Christmas: While our Christian friends are snuggled in front of a cozy fire, opening gifts and scarfing down plum pudding—my first husband was one of them so I know this for a fact—we sit huddled together on wooden benches, eating gefilte fish and reading aloud from the Torah.

Okay, not really, but that’s how it feels to me. Despite the growing commercialization of Hannukah, Christmas will always be Numero Uno the world over. And despite my own participation in the festivities, baking the occasional sugar cookie and mailing cards to distant friends, December 25^th still finds me bereft from dawn till dusk. There’s little to do but wait it out. Everything is closed except for the 7-11, and believe me, after the coffee and donuts and an hour or two skimming through magazines, that’s pretty much played. As for TV, how many times can you watch Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed discover that “It’s a Wonderful Life” after all?

Growing up in the New York City suburbs in the late fifties, in the shadow of St. Agnes Cathedral, ours was one of only two Jewish families living on a street full of hardened Catholics. Holidays of any sort ignited full-blown block parties involving anyone who owned a Tupperware container. Naturally in such an environment Christmas was a big deal, spawning an array of blinking colored lights, glowing rooftop reindeer and giant candy canes worthy of a Fellini dream sequence. Among all the holiday glitz on Willow Street, two houses remained dark: ours and the Shreibmans, who lived across the street. It may sound silly, but what made Willow Street special was that Santa Claus, in the flesh, visited every house on Christmas Eve. (Apparently our street was one of several rest stops on his global tour.) He did the whole milk-and-cookies bit, leaving behind a gift for every child. He even came to our house, he being an all-inclusive, non-denominational Santa.

One snowy Christmas in my sixth year, as I was hurrying to get home before dark after a spirited snowball fight, I noticed something odd over at Joanne Rooney’s house: There was a light on in the garage, and there was a man dressed only in his long underwear! Boy, he must be cold, I thought. Then I noticed, hey, that guy looks sort of like Mr. Rooney, but when did he get so fat? He was stuffing a pillow into his suit--and wait a minute, that suit looks familiar. The sack of toys, the white beard, the black boots-- Jew or no Jew, I knew Santa when I saw him. Joanne Rooney’s father was Santa Claus!

Still reeling from the recent shock of learning that my mother was the “Tooth Fairy,” I plopped down into a snowdrift to catch my breath, all the while watching Mr. Rooney complete his transformation into Old Saint Nick. Then, bursting with the news, I raced home and confronted my parents, demanding some fast answers about a certain Irishman and a red velvet suit. After some preliminary stalling, they caved, explaining that Mr. Rooney was “helping” Santa. “Promise me you won’t tell any of the other kids,” my mother begged, a haunted look of terror in her eyes. “Promise!”

“Yeah, sure, I promise,” I said, but that promise didn’t apply to my very best friend who lived right next door. Suzanne was French, and certainly could be trusted: since returning from a Thanksgiving visit to her grandparents in France, she had all but forgotten English anyway. Unfortunately her older sister, who at age seven was fluent in both languages, overheard me, and before you could say “Geraldo Rivera,” the story hit the street.

Of course there were the usual skeptics who assumed I was just bitter about the Holocaust, but most of the kids conducted their own research, pulling at Santa’s beard and asking him if Joanne could come out and play. The jig was definitely up.

Things were tense on Willow Street for many months. The Shreibmans soon fled to friendlier waters in Boca Raton, and I took to playing with my friends from school. Eventually I was forgiven, mostly because there were no applicants for my position as permanent-ender in jump rope.

Santa Rooney kept his appointed rounds the next year, but he never stopped at our house again, leaving a void I experience anew every Christmas Eve. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t say a word.