What St. Nicholas Was Really Like

Here's a story about the real St. Nicholas that's part fact and part fiction.  I'd tell you where the fact part ends and the fiction part starts, but chances are good that you wouldn't believe me.

Misfit Toys

Edward L. Paciorek

Chapter 1

            “The last thing she said to me was, ‘And here’s Hatey Katie,’” the young girl said.  Her voice was completely devoid of emotion as she dabbed a paper towel at the corner of her mouth, which was showing a slight trickle of blood and was beginning to swell.

Assistant Principal Ronco was more than familiar with the young lady sitting before him in his office, for she had a long and colorful history of interacting with the other students at Thebes High School.  That history included many instances of non-verbal communication, which covered exercises in basic physics, as in proving that a one-hundred-and-twenty pound 10^th grade girl can indeed generate enough centrifugal force to spin, lift and propel a one-hundred-and-five pound 9^th grade girl over a table and into a wall.  That incident occurred over a year ago, and things had been relatively quiet for Katie since then, but something had definitely pulled her chain that day.  Katie had made it to eleventh grade, but graduating next year seemed like an iffy proposition at that moment.

Even though there was a part of him that wanted to try out some metaphoric physics of his own and throw the school rulebook back at her, there was another part of him that couldn’t ignore the knowledge that almost every unpleasant encounter that had landed Katie in his office over the last two-and-a-half years had been initiated by another student.  These students had been too oblivious, overconfident, or under-informed to know that picking on Katie was a losing, generally painful, and occasionally bloody proposition.

            “And I suppose that she started it?”  Mr. Ronco asked, already knowing the answer.  A handful of students that he had met during his tenure at Thebes High were just the living embodiment of a bad decision looking for an excuse to act out, and the young lady whom Katie had “tuned up” was well known to him also.  However the other girl didn’t seem to have the personal awareness required to eventually outgrow her character flaws. 

There was something about Katie that suggested to him that under the proper circumstances, she just might.

            “Hey, I was just standing there with my friends, minding my own business, when this little mouthy tramp, Christin Ha…”

            As interesting and colorful as Katie’s long-winded self-justification might be, he just couldn’t focus on the details.  The file spread out on the desk before him told him nearly everything that he needed to know, and the minute that Katie mentioned the word “friends,” his imagination drifted to another set of relatively thick files safely hidden away in his cabinet – the files of several of those aforementioned friends.

            To say the least, they were a colorful crew.  Whereas most high school students fell comfortably into one or possibly two of the classical high school subgroups, jocks, cools, Goths, losers, burn-outs, band-ohs, thespians, etc., Katie had managed to assemble a collection of unique human specimens into a sort of surrogate family.  It functioned as a surrogate family because he knew that Katie didn’t have any blood relatives of her own.  Before school and between classes, their home base was under the school’s main staircase, down on the first floor.  Since the school was set into a hill, the odd reality was that the second floor was considered the main floor and the first floor was more like a basement with windows.

            Katie had been living in foster care since her substance-abusing dad overdosed when she was only seven.  She was eventually adopted and currently she lived with three other sisters.  They were spread out over four grades, all currently attending Thebes High School.  The oldest would be graduating at the end of this school year.  Although he was aware of her various adopted siblings, he wasn’t on a first name basis with them, like he was with Katie.  Sure, they probably got picked on by the other students also, but it was a large and affluent high school, which meant that the chances were excellent that everyone in the school would get mocked or belittled by somebody at some point.  Showing up on the first day of school with worn or secondhand clothes might pass as fashionable for a while, but eventually someone would figure out that it’s not an intentional statement and an “abuse me” target would get metaphorically painted on the back of that individual.  For some people, high school is heavenly, but those people are generally the “haves,” as in they have all of their needs met, they have a support system of family and friends, and they move in the upper social strata of the school.  It was Mr. Ronco’s impression that the lower end of the class-caste system that developed in high school generally stratified in relation to how much a person was a “have-not” as opposed to a have.  Katie and her collection of friends were deeply moored in the quagmire of “have-not.”  Their self-declared kingdom was under the stairs, which was high school real estate that no one else wanted.

Some of her friends had acclimated to the semi-predatory nature of the high school jungle and had added to their list of “have-not” the line item “Have not the strength to fight back any more.”

Katie refused to add that condition to her personal list, which brought a tinge of admiration towards her in Mr. Ronco’s eyes.  There was a poster he had seen once, years ago, of a powerful eagle swooping down upon a tiny, defiant field mouse.  As she droned on, he wondered if Katie had ever been a field mouse in a past life. 

Katie and her friends were known throughout the school, which added to the aggressor/target nature of their life.  When they gathered together in a far corner of the cafeteria during lunch, they were collectively referred to as “The Island of Misfit Toys.”

He sighed and politely allowed Katie to ramble on about the situation in question.  He might not be able to significantly change the quality of her life here at school, but he could at least show enough compassion towards her to let her express her fears and anger until she was emotionally sated.  Katie knew how unfair life could be, and Mr. Ronco suspected that she’d learned that lesson long before she’d ever set foot in Thebes High.  He would let her vent about her side of the story before he suspended her for three days, as dictated by the school district policy concerning student fighting.

Was fighting for one’s emotional survival actually a form of fighting, or surviving?   Mr. Ronco pondered this thought silently to himself, for there were no school district policies printed inside the student planners to cover how to deal with surviving high school.   

Chapter 2

            Mr. Nicholas Freeman had been teaching high school students for a very long time.  In fact, if he really thought about it, he had stood as a teacher in front of his first group about thirty-six years before.  In all of the intervening time, some things had changed, like the long list of technologies that had fallen into obsolescence since he had mastered the eight track and cutting stencils by hand for the mimeo machine.  Some things had not changed, like the basic nature of high school students.  Certainly, he’d seen variations from group to group, and sometimes those negative outlooks became so pronounced that he would agree with his colleagues that “There must’ve been something in the water,” but these anomalies always evened out, like the returning to center of a swinging pendulum, and time would stumble on.  As long as he could deal with the disinterested, under-motivated part of the class, all would be well.  There was, he had noticed, an unfortunate trend in the proportions of student attitudes under his care.  When he began his career, three quarters of any given class was interested, to one degree or another, in learning, making for one quarter or less of the class to be an uphill challenge each day.  Thirty-six years later, there were days when it felt like the proportions had been reversed, and that most of the class was waiting for him to carry them up the intellectual mountain upon his back, unaided.  Thankfully, these completely exhausting days were relatively few, although when having one, he would find himself wondering why he had chosen teaching as a profession, and how many years it would be before he could financially retire.  Some days he would just sit there and daydream for a moment or two about what it would be like working for Walt Disney Studios, nose down, cranking out animated magic for the next Disney debut.  Unfortunately, each of the four times that he’d sent his artwork to Disney over the last thirty years, it had ended up in the wrong hands, and so he never even got a peek through the front door to a possible animation future. 

God, in His infinite wisdom, seemed to want Mr. Freeman right where he was, and Mr. F., having purposely given his free will over to God, had no choice but to go, or stay, where he was directed.

            That’s not to say that most days were exhausting or a challenge, for all it took was a passing comment from a former student like, “I really miss your class” to make all of the metaphoric toe-stubbings of the day immediately disappear.

            Since he liked to be at school at least 45 minutes before the school day began, it wasn’t unusual for students to drop by and hang out in his room until the busses arrived and disgorged their masses.  There were even instances when students whom he had never taught came and hung out with him before school, and these would be the younger siblings of students that he’d had in the past.  Although he’d had Katie as a student in his Creative Writing class the year before, he was a bit surprised to see her in his room one morning just before Christmas break.  She was obviously agitated and she was there to wait for one of her friends in his first hour Science Fiction class.

            “Katie, I heard that you had an interesting time last week,” Mr. F. said.

            “I had a three day vacation, so it was great,” Katie replied, trying to make light of the subject.

            Mr. Freeman strolled through his mental file on Katie from the year before.  She mostly kept to herself, but on the rare occasion when she felt like someone was giving her attitude or talking behind her back, Katie’s first instinct was to attack with everything she had.  On a couple of occasions the verbal jousting in class had reached alarming levels, and he had wondered if he could diffuse the argument without additional escalation.  He had barely been able to bring peace back to the classroom.

            As for her creative writing assignments, they were, sadly, few and far between, but those that she did turn in showed a depth of feeling and thought that one wouldn’t have guessed at while watching her do her best disinterested roller-derby-queen impersonation in class.

            “Katie, how do you want people to interact with you?”

            From her expression, the question struck Katie in the face like a smack.  Her brow furrowed and after a few seconds of mentally chewing on it, she answered back:

            “I want to be a respected person.”

            “Very good, now how to you plan to go about accomplishing that?  Do you plan to use your fists, because they won’t get you respect.  They may get you avoided or tolerated, but your fists won’t earn you respect.”

            Mr. Freeman looked long and hard at Katie as she pondered his words.  In his experience, he knew that real teaching moments, moments when students were truly open to hearing what an adult is saying without prejudice or bias are few and far between.  There was a chance that if he said things in just the right, thought-provoking way, he might be able to plant a seed that could change Katie’s outlook and destiny.

            “I understand that you have unusually powerful anger within you, but do you know that?” he continued.

            “What do you mean?” she asked.

            “Well, most people start their day with a calm attitude and a clean slate.  You, however, because of all that’s happened to you in your life, start the day with a little anger simmering on the back burner of your emotional stove, and if anyone gives you any grief, it soon flames to full fury and burns down the kitchen.  Am I right?”

            “How did you know that?”

            “I was brought up around angry people, so I understand what it feels like to be at the mercy of their anger and yet unable to get them to stop striking out at you.  If I didn’t have my own coping mechanisms, like my relationship with God and prayer to take my anger away, I’d be a lot like you, a stick of dynamite just waiting for the ghost of a thought of a spark to ignite.”

            “It’s not always that way.”

            “Are you sure?” Mr. Freeman challenged in a friendly way.

            OK, it’s mostly that way.”

            “Have you ever known anyone whose anger has caused you pain and ruined your life?”

            “N………yes, my biological father,” just verbalizing that truth seemed to cause a shift in Katie’s countenance.

            “OK, that explains a lot.  My question to you is, ‘Do you want to grow up to be a female extension of your father’s anger?  Do you want to cause other people pain, like your father did to you?  I come from two violently broken alcoholic homes, so I have some idea what it takes to survive when everything in your life seems unfair.”

            Katie looked at Mr. Freeman as if she were seeing him for the very first time, even though she’d known him for more than a year.

            As was the case with every other teaching moment that Mr. Freeman had ever experienced, the one with Katie was also over too soon, for the start of the school day interfered and students began trickling into the room.  Their privacy was gone, but he could tell by the look on her face that she would ponder what he’d said, and that perhaps there would be a change for the better in the near future for her.  Katie found the friend that she’d been waiting for and the daily education grind began turning its gears.

Chapter 3

            The following Monday, which was the last Monday before Christmas break, Mr. Freeman arrived to find Katie waiting for him outside of his classroom door.  She seemed happier somehow, like she’d made some major decision.  Once he got settled in, she handed him a handwritten note to read.

Dear Mr. F.,

As you know, on Tuesday, November 30^th, I got into a fight.  I was really mad, and I guess I was blinded by my anger.  A few days later, I told one of my teachers from last year what happened and he asked me a short but very hard question to answer – “How do you want people to interact with you?”

At first, I was taken off guard, and then I realized that I really didn’t have a straight answer, so I said the first thing that came to my mind, which was, “I want to be a respected person.”   As he went on talking, he also asked me another question.

“Have you known a person whose anger caused you pain and ruined your life?”

I was in the middle of saying “No” when I blurted out “Yes,” and then I said, “My biological father.”

He asked me if I wanted to cause people the kind of pain that my father had caused me…if I wanted to be a female extension of my father.  Then I said, “No,” and that is the truth…and one of my fears as a person coming from the background I came from is being the same as my father.  I never thought that I would hear the words spoken to me from this teacher, but I listened, and it was a shock, but it was also a new perspective to look at.

He said that my anger wasn’t regular or normal…but that his anger isn’t either.  I know he understands, and it was surprising to me that he knew what I was feeling, but I know what he meant.  He meant that I have felt so much pain that I shouldn’t want others to go through the agony I have experienced…but what he meant to do was to open my eyes…to not be blinded by my anger.  In truth, now I see things with a new perspective and I just wanted to say thanks…for being understanding and telling me that I’m not alone.

Sincerely,

Katie H.         

Mr. Freeman wanted to have a good, long talk with Katie in private, but once again, the start of the school day began intruding.  They smiled at each other with understanding.

“I’m going to try to do better,” Katie said.

“And you’re going to be successful.  Of that, I have no doubt.”

“Thanks for having faith in me,” Katie said.

“It’s too bad that we couldn’t have had this conversation last year.  Perhaps Creative Writing would’ve been a more enjoyable experience,” Mr. Freeman added.

“Yea, I’m sorry about that, but to be honest, I probably couldn’t have heard what you were saying last year.  I was in a bad place then.”

“I understand, so I guess your journey to a new you will begin today, which works out quite nicely with the New Year right around the corner.  It’s time for resolutions.”

“If I don’t see you, have a great Christmas season, Mr. F.,” Katie said before leaving.

“Oh, I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing each other again soon,” Mr. Freeman said to himself as the classroom started to fill up.

Chapter 4

            In what seemed like the blink of an eye, it was time for Christmas break.

Katie’s entire world consisted of one third of a twelve foot by twelve foot room residing within a quiet neighborhood of three bedroom ranch houses that looked like they were all pried out of the same general mold.  There were small details that differed, like the placement of hedges and trees, but that didn’t cover the skeletal uniformity of the neighborhood.  Her subdivision was one of the older ones in the city and it had been carved out of the fields of an old farm.  Through the passing of time, the similar fields that once surrounded it had been magically transformed through the wonder of wealth into rambling rows of miniature mansions, with shiny copper roofs over their curved dormer windows and sculptured lawns worth more than her adopted parents’ entire house and property combined. 

She didn’t have much, but she appreciated what she had.  There was a closet a third full of her clothes, a bed that she didn’t need to share with anyone else and guardians who actually did care about her well being, even though she wasn’t blood family. 

She had put them through a lot, she knew. 

There were days when the injustice of her life would start to bubble up in the back of her throat like she was going to be sick, and then she would just want to scream.

            She had two parents once, but she learned very early that anyone can be a parent.  It takes a much larger commitment in order to be a Mom or a Dad.  Her mother, she could remember quite clearly, although she had abandoned Katie to be brought up by her father.  She was about five foot five inches tall, had brown hair, blue eyes, and an addiction problem second only to perhaps her father.  Katie’s mother had packed a bag and left her life so quickly that she never had a chance to ask, “Mom, where are you going?” 

And then there was her father.  She tried not to think about him very often because the memories came in two extremes, either with him high out of his mind and treating her like a little princess, or him high out of his mind in a fit of rage over some little injustice.  Whenever she was foolish enough to open the little Pandora’s Box that she kept his memory trapped in at the back of her imagination, sometimes he would climb out and give her a hug with his bleary eyes and his distant expressions, and sometimes he would leap out, wagging his finger and screaming obscenities with a contorted expression, like some demon.  From time to time she would watch movies where loving families were portrayed in wonderful, supportive harmony.  Where the mother would do anything for her children and the father provided for and defended his family, even to the death. 

She didn’t feel comfortable watching reruns of The Brady Bunch.

            Life wasn’t like the movies – at least not her life.      

            Still, as long as she stayed in the subdivision and close to the house there was a degree of peace and quiet.  She had made a few friends along the way and those friendships were a safe port in the storm when she finally got to the high school.  When all of the children rode the bus to school it wasn’t that huge a deal where everyone lived because at that age, children judged each other on things like clothing, hair styles, and whether or not they had the coolest shoes.  In high school, especially around the tenth grade, where you lived, how much your family was worth, and whether or not your father could afford to give you a big party and a new car on your sixteenth birthday came into play.  It really didn’t matter to Katie, for whatever criteria her supposed “peers” judged her by would find her wanting.

            Were she living on the other side of the world, her situation would make her the envy of most, but here in Thebes, Michigan, one of the richest cities in one of the richest counties in America, her situation placed her squarely at the bottom of the social pecking order.  She had no bling, she had no car, she had no blood family with her, her mother had abandoned her and her father was long dead.  Many days she felt like life had tattooed a “Kick here” message across her forehead that was only invisible to her.

            The bus ride home had been uneventful, which was good.  The streets were wet but unobstructed, with huge piles of snow still lining each side from the last big snowstorm, which had occurred about a week prior.  Mother Nature had lost it right about the same time that Katie had lost it, she mused silently to herself.  Her suspension had bought her some breathing room from the wandering packs of wild dogs shaped like humans that she shared the high school with, and her reputation for putting up with nothing from the simple-minded had been reestablished.  Her adopted siblings trailed behind her, making holiday plans to spend time with their subdivision friends while she unlocked the front door of their house and ventured inside.  Even though the artificial tree in the living room wasn’t that tall, it still brought a festive thought or two to her head as she walked past.  Christmas break was unusually long this year, over two weeks. 

She planned on spending as much time with her friends as she could.  The Misfit Toys liked to hang out at the local malls and people watch, since none of them had much money to spare.  There were two very distinct malls in Thebes, Michigan.  At the south end of the city was the common workers’ mall, where the blue and white collar workers liked to shop.  At the far west end of the city was another mall, which was where the gold collar workers liked to go to be worshipped while they spread their bounty around, trickling prosperity down upon the masses.  In fact, it was above being referred to as a mall – it was a “Collection.”  Katie and the Toys spent most of their time at the blue collar mall, although sometimes during hectic shopping seasons, they liked to drop in on the gold collar “Collection” just to watch the security guards stalk them, and the patrons try to avoid them like they were misplaced lepers recently imported from Calcutta.

She threw her backpack into the corner next to her bed and flopped down, careful to dangle her shoes off of the end of the bed.  She didn’t feel like getting into any more arguments with anyone, especially over silly little things like the house rules, which would include such classics as “No shoes on the bed.”  She stared at the ceiling, wondering what it would be like to have her own computer all to herself, and being able to be online with her friends to all hours of the night.  She wondered what it would be like to have a closet, or a dresser, or a room that was hers alone.  She imagined the many students from the school that she knew who would now be texting each other on their private cell phones, and jumping into their cars and whizzing off to the gold-plated mall.  They would be spending the evening having dinner at the food court, trolling for that perfect gift through store after store, ending the day perhaps with some exotic and expensive cup of coffee, and then driving home.  She hoped that someday, maybe before she graduated from college somewhere, that she’d catch up with most of the rest of the kids that she knew and their many freedoms.

“If you’re going to dream, dream big, I always say,” she muttered to no one but God, and then she kicked off her shoes and curled up to take a little nap before preparing dinner to erase the aftertaste of the day, which was her way of shaking the etch-a-sketch that was her life.

Chapter 5

She woke up when she felt an unfamiliar weight slightly bearing down on her stomach, like someone had turned her into a human coffee table.  When she focused her eyes, there smiling back at her was the pink-cheeked, round and whiskered face of a little plastic Santa about six inches tall.

“Wake up Katie, it’s Santa Claus.  I’ve brought you a lifetime worth of presents, and there are so many that you’ll have to buy a whole new house to live in just to store them!”  Although altered to sound like a jolly old man, it was obviously the voice of her adopted sister, Angela, pestering her.

“Riiiiightttttttt!” Katie groaned, closing her eyes again and turning on her side.

“No, I’m serious.  I have to apologize for the delay but I was given the wrong address when you were younger, and I mistakenly delivered your gifts to your mother…”

“You have just crossed from mildly amusing into ‘Do you want stitches for Christmas?’” Katie replied through partially clenched teeth.

“Oh, grow a sense of humor, besides you can’t give me stitches for Christmas because you’d end up in a world of hurt after last week’s adventure.” 

Katie felt Angela putting the Santa figure on her temple, trying to balance it there on its nearly round bottom.

“Don’t you believe in Santa?” Angela asked.

“I believe in Santa every time he appears on the TV screen and tells me that he’s having a sale on something that I can’t afford.  That’s about as far as my belief extends,” Katie barked, sarcastically.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if he really existed?” Angela asked.

“It would be cool if you let me alone for a couple more minutes before I have to get up and make the dinner.”

“Luck of the draw.  Friday nights are all yours, chef girl.”

“Right, it’s not like I have any serious Friday night plans – EVER!”

“See how that works out perfectly?!”

“Enough with the perky - leave me in peace.  You can at least go out with your rich friends and pretend to fit in with them.”

“My friends are not rich…”

“Compared to us, the neighborhood squirrels are rich,” Katie retorted.

“You could have more friends, you know.  You make it tough,” Angela insisted.

“No, I make it real.  I don’t have any acquaintances masquerading as friends.”

“Whatever…,” Angela quipped.

After an uncomfortable silence, Katie stated, “I’m doing it again, aren’t I.”

“Biting the hand held out to you for a shake?  Yep, you’re doing it again.”

“I’m trying to change.”

“Well, Cutie Katie, as long as you’re haunted by the Ghost of Angry Fathers Past, you’re going to have a problem with that,” Angela interjected.

“You might be right; he is like a ghost in my life,” Katie answered.

“One of the advantages of being a senior is having access to vast warehouses of wisdom, young lass.”

“Oh, give me a break; you’re no more a senior than I am.” 

“I decided to ask Santa for early-onset senioritis for Christmas,” Angela shot back.

“Senioritis - a year ahead of time - I’m sure that all of your teachers will be thrilled to hear about that when we get back to school.  Where did you get this Santa thing from, anyway?”

“I found it at the bottom of an old ornament box.  It’s ancient, like fifty years old, but he’s still smiling, even though his plastic is yellowing and fragile.  I suggest that you be like Santa this year and keep smiling, even while you’re yellowing and becoming even more fragile.”

“You are a laugh riot, Angela dear.”

“And you, Katie dear, are more often than not a fist looking for a face to rearrange.  How about a global ceasefire for the Christmas holidays?  Maybe Santa will take you off of the Naughty list and put you on the Nice list.”

“I’m working on it, and that’s the best that I can do,” Katie said, as she placed the Santa figure on her nightstand and got up. 

“Come on, I’ll help you with dinner.  Maybe I can smear you with a bit of holiday cheer while you’re not looking,” Angela said, bounding through the bedroom doorway.

“There’s a part of me that wishes you were real, Santa, but that part of me got beaten up a long time ago and is in the witness protection program right now.”  She reached out and plunked the Santa figure on the forehead, causing it to wobble on its mostly egg-like bottom.  “And Angela better be wrong about you mis-delivering a lifetime of gifts or you and I are going to have a serious discussion when I see you next.”

“If you’re not down here to help me with dinner in two seconds, I’m defrosting the frozen broccoli and opening up a can of those yellow wax beans that you and grandma love so much!” Angela yelled from the kitchen.

“Your Jedi mind tricks aren’t working on me,” Katie yelled back as she ran from the room.      

Chapter 6

Something was making music in the back of her mind.  It wasn’t exactly musical notes, per se, but it wasn’t voices either.  It was just a gentle, soothing sensation, like having all of the molecules of the universe sigh at the same time.  She opened her eyes to a darkened room and she remembered in fast forward the events of the past evening, Christmas Eve.  It had been a pleasant enough dinner and social time afterwards, but she couldn’t help but ponder the type of Christmas morning that a lifetime of movies and stories had shown her.  She would have fun exchanging gifts the next morning with her adopted family, but it wouldn’t be anything like the glittering room stacked full of wrapped suspense that she saw on Christmas cards and in store window displays. 

As her eyes became accustomed to the dark, she noticed that the old plastic Santa was once again resting upon her stomach.  Certainly it had been placed there by Angela, in yet another attempt to hose her down with holiday cheer.  As she looked at the tiny smiling countenance before her, she had the oddest sensation that something was shifting, altering, growing right before her eyes.  And then, after blinking her eyes several times, she would’ve sworn that she was looking at a large, stout man with flowing white beard and red robes, patiently gazing back at her from the end of her bed.

Believing that she was just experiencing a semi-dream state, she reached out to touch the plastic Santa that she believed was still resting upon her abdomen.

Her hands closed around nothing, and the man at the foot of her bed smiled even larger and tilted his head in a friendly manner.

“No way - Angela, Brittany, there’s someone in our room!” Katie heard herself say.

“Don’t worry my Dear, your feelings of surprise will pass momentarily,” the bearded man said softly. 

“Angela,” she said, louder than before.

“She can’t hear you.”

“So this is a dream?”

“If you wish it to be, it certainly can be.”

“You can’t be real.”

“Are you feeling calmer now?  They say that you can tell the difference between a nice spiritual visit and a nasty spiritual visit by your initial reaction.  If you are surprised at first and then you feel calm, it’s a nice visit.  If you feel calm at first and then experience a creeping feeling of dread, then it’s a nasty visit.”

“So this is a nice visit?”

“I’m hoping that you will feel that way about it before we’re done.”

“And you want me to believe that you’re Santa Claus?”

“Well, I’ll let you in on a secret.  There actually isn’t anyone named Santa Claus, but I thought that it would be a good way for me to break the ice.”

“Angela says that you owe me a lifetime of presents.”

“Angela is a very amusing girl but she’s got things a bit askew.  It’s true that I am occasionally allowed to deliver presents, but they are hardly ever the kind that you would expect.  They don’t come wrapped in shiny paper and they are never delivered by flying reindeer to your rooftop.  That’s all just a heartwarming story told to children a bit too young to realize what the most precious gifts in the world really are.  When we are young, we mistakenly believe that true happiness can be delivered in a box.  Pleasant distractions can certainly be packaged and shipped, but the world’s greatest gifts have no mass or weight, and so they are a bit more difficult to see, feel and appreciate.  I am here to bring you one of those gifts that are difficult to wrap, the gift of knowledge.”

“Knowledge - it sounds a bit boring, if you ask me.”

“Oh, I’m not talking about the lecture and note taking kind of knowledge.  I’m talking about the sharing God’s secrets sort of knowledge.”   

Katie looked at him with a growing expression of curiosity.

“Why are you here as Santa Claus, if, as you say, he doesn’t exist?” she finally blurted out.

The bearded man smiled as only an old, wise soul can, and replied, “That’s a very good question.  Why Santa Claus, a person who never existed, instead of Nicholas, the Bishop of Myra, who I once was and who continues to exist, as evidenced by my being here and talking to you now?”

“Right, what you said,” Katie replied immediately.

“Well, the answer is very simple, even though the story is very old and very long.  Santa Claus was created to bring some of God’s love to those who didn’t feel comfortable seeking God’s love inside His churches.  Jesus belongs to Christianity, and so does Nicholas, but Santa Claus has become a symbol without religious attachment.  Some people embrace the love of Jesus when they attend their Christmas service, and they also accept the mythical and magical love of Santa when they empty their stockings and open their presents under their tree on Christmas morning.  Anyone can accept the concept of Santa because he is only a seasonal symbol, whereas accepting Jesus is a way of life for many.”

“So God gives us two ways to think about love at Christmas time,” Katie concluded.

“Precisely, so that everyone can find joy in the season of Jesus’ birth, even if a person isn’t comfortable declaring themselves a Christian.  It is a season devoted to the best and most noble aspects of humankind, and love is foremost upon that list, followed by the acts of giving, and self-sacrifice.”

“So, tell me more about Santa, Mr. Not-Santa,” Katie said, smiling.

“Actually, there isn’t much to tell, since Santa is a made-up person.  Santa is about rhyming stories of a fanciful nature, of Christmas elves and wooden hand-made toys, of flying sleighs and glowing noses, and gifts for good girls and boys.  He is a character designed to bring attention to choosing to be good over choosing to be selfish and bad, but the emphasis is always upon love and forgiveness of even the most mislead soul, as in the case of Ebenezer Scrooge.”

“Oh, I know all about him; I’ve seen all of the movies,” Katie added.  “I particularly liked the Mickey Mouse version with Uncle Scrooge.”

“There’s a reason that the story is so popular, and it is because there are more hidden truths in the story than people suspect.”

“Like what?”

“I’d love to sit here and share with you all of God’s mysteries, but my time with you is relatively short.  It may be inaccurate that I travel from house to house dropping off presents to the whole world tonight on Christmas Eve, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have anything to do.  I have some other special people to visit; people who have also chosen to give away their anger this year, as you have.”

“Why is giving away anger important?”

“It’s because being angry is like having a voice screaming in the back of your head all of the time, and that screaming makes it impossible to hear God’s voice.”

“Are you God’s voice?”

“Anyone who shares the message of God’s love acts as God’s voice.  Someday soon, perhaps you will choose to act as God’s voice, but for tonight, that is my very special assignment.  Would you prefer that I sit here dressed as Santa Claus, or would it be alright for me to look a bit more like my true self?”

“Oh please, your true self would be fine.  Did you bring a change of clothes…?” 

A soft glow spread throughout the room, bathing Katie and her sleeping siblings in a golden light.  The stout and red-suited bearded man sitting on the end of her bed slowly changed before her eyes into a thinner, somewhat balder old man, with pleasing wrinkles and wearing a comfortable tunic from many centuries ago.

“As you can see, there are some similarities, but my beard isn’t as long and white, and my hair isn’t quite as full as Santa’s.  I could show you my bishop’s robes if you prefer, but I thought them a little formal for this visit.”

“You look more like Merlin than Santa.  How in the world did you get changed into Santa Claus?”

“Well, all sorts of strange things can happen over the span of almost 1,700 years.  In my lifetime as Nicholas, I was allowed to perform several miracles, and stories of those seven true miracles eventually created stories of even more miracles, and then legends and well-intentioned nonsense.”

“You said, ‘In my lifetime as Nicholas’ as if you have had other lifetimes.  Do people live other lifetimes?  Have I lived other lifetimes?”

“Let’s just say that it is possible to learn the answers to all of God’s questions in a single lifetime, and then let’s agree to ponder the possibility that if you get the answers wrong the first time around that God might allow for retakes.  Anyway, as I was saying, my Nicholas lifetime grew into something much bigger than the one I actually lived, and then it evolved into a story about loving children, giving presents, and traveling by glowing anti-gravitational reindeer.  It’s a charming myth, and at its core is the message to love and give, which is a very powerful message indeed.  As to the physics of the myth, living hidden at the North Pole would be a serious logistical problem, and calculating the weight and mass of even a single present given to every child on Earth would require a sleigh about the size of Rhode Island.  And then, after it was loaded, can you imagine the amount of pull that would have to be exerted before we could achieve take-off?  Without adequate pull, the sleigh and I would dangle behind the last reindeer like a pendulum, and all of the toys would spill out over the countryside behind us.  Even if these problems were overcome, it would be an easy task of seeing exactly where Santa had been because there would be a trail of smashed houses from the impact of such a tremendous load upon their roofs at landing.”

“All of these things are explained away by Santa being magical,” Katie surmised.

“Santa is magical, but in a way that surpasses even the myth of the jolly man in the red suit.  The idea of Santa makes children smile and desire to be good, it moves parents to dress up in the middle of the night and leave reindeer tracks in the snow outside, and it allows a message of selfless giving to be promoted with no additional strings attached whatsoever, and these are all good things.”

“So, tell me about your life as St. Nicholas, please,” Katie begged.    

“Well, I was born Nicholas in what is now Western Turkey, back when it was called Lycia.   I was born into a wealthy merchant family.  A legend is told about how on important church days, when fasting was expected, I, then but a babe, refused to take nourishment in order to honor God.  That particular legend is true, although I obviously didn’t remember that detail of my childhood when I grew up.  Actually, I didn’t need to remember because many people around me seemed impressed by my unexpected piety and were determined to remind me of it whenever they could.

With a wave of his hand, the air began to dance and flicker and Katie felt like she was falling into another time as Nicholas’ words were magically transformed for her into pictures, like walking through a movie setting. 

“At the age of five, I began studying the sacred writings of Christianity.  When I was still a small boy, a plague descended upon my hometown of Patara and both of my parents became ill and died.”

“It’s terrible to lose your parents … for whatever reason,” Katie said quietly. 

“My dear, all of us will experience loss, and the real measure of a soul is how they respond to that loss.  I was fortunate because I had an uncle who was a monk and who lived in a monastery.  My uncle, the abbot, welcomed me with open arms and taught me everything he knew about loving God and Jesus.  Because of his influence and love, I decided to become a monk when I grew up, but God had other, more dramatic things in mind.”

“My mother is still alive, or so I believe,” Katie added.         

“Your mother left because she knew that her staying would just lead to more complication in your life.  She meant well.  Following my own plan to become a monk, I determined that my family wealth needed to be given away to the poor.  This was no simple task, for even as a child, I knew that a mass of gold put into any one hand could more often than not lead to foolishness.  With that in mind, I decided to give the family wealth away in small bags, representing approximately a good year’s wages, which would be enough wealth for each recipient to rejoice, yet hopefully, not enough wealth to feel so rich that they lost all perspective and squandered it away frivolously.”

“I think I heard that story, about the three unmarried daughters and the three bags of gold.”

“Specifically, that never happened, for although I was known to climb up on roofs and drop bags of gold down chimneys and secretly toss bags of gold through open windows, there was never an instance where I gave three bags of gold to a single family containing three daughters.  There is another tale of my buying a rug at a highly inflated price, and then finding an excuse to give the rug back to the rug merchant’s wife.  These types of things did happen, and relatively often, but the three daughter dowry story and the rug merchant story never happened.”

“It must’ve felt wonderful, giving all of your wealth away,” Katie replied.    

“It was.  There is no situation that warms the heart faster than bringing joy to others.  While I was still a teenager, like you are now, I was traveling home by ship when we experienced a terrible storm.  Many of the crew abandoned ship.  Only three sailors were left when I came up on deck and prayed that the storm stop and the seas calm.  They did, and this was the fourth miracle that I was allowed to perform during that lifetime.  The ship limped to shore and we landed in Myra, in Lycia.  The priests at the local church had experienced strange dreams, where they were instructed to appoint the first person who showed up to morning worship that day the next bishop.  Having just been involved in a miracle, I was the first person at church, and I was unexpectedly made the Bishop of Myra on the spot, much to my immense surprise.”

“I guess you don’t need a resume’ when God recommends you for a job,” Katie quipped.                Laughing heartily, Nicholas replied, “No, you certainly don’t.  The fifth miracle that I was involved with revolved around three young boys who were murdered by a wicked innkeeper.  They were killed and their bodies placed in barrels of salt brine, the murderer’s intention being to serve the meat to his unsuspecting guests.  I came to the inn, became aware of the crime, and then confronted the innkeeper and got him to confess to the murders. I was instructed to pray over the brine barrels and the boys were miraculously restored to life, leaping out to confront their assailant, who then cowered in fear.”

“I’ll bet he did.”         

“After that, I came to be known as ‘The Wonder Worker.’”

“Are there any other stories about you that are true?”           

“There are stories about my saving the lives of three innocent men who had been unjustly condemned to death by a bribed governor.  During a time of famine in 311AD and 312AD, I begged grain from some ships about to leave port for Alexandria.  Although reluctant, the captains of the ships took some of the wheat in their holds and gave it to me.  I was then instructed to bless it and give it to all who had need.  The blessed wheat grew abundantly and lasted in storage for two years, with enough left over to continue planting new crops.”

“Did you always get along with everyone?” Katie inquired.   
            “Actually, no, for there are shiny souls and shadow souls in the world, and the shadows often experience an immediate dislike to those who are shiny inside.  I attended the Council of Nicea in 325, and there I confronted the heretic Arias, who was trying to tear the council apart by asserting that Jesus was not in any way equal to God.  History says that I slapped Arias or punched him in the face.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”           

“Thank you; that is not what happened between us.  Knowing how strongly I defended the divinity of Jesus, Arias managed to engage me in a heated discussion off to the side, away from the prying eyes and eager ears of the group of assembled Christians.  Taking advantage of the moment, Arias leaned in on me in an aggressive manner, and when I pushed him away, Arias threw himself backwards with exaggerated force.  He then made accusations concerning my having physically attacked him, and of my being unworthy of wearing the mantle of bishop.  For this alleged act of violence, I was brought before the emperor, Constantine, who stripped me of my office on the spot and threw me into prison for the offense.”

“How unfair!  What a creep!”

“The following night, I was visited in my prison cell.  Jesus and his mother Mary brought me a gift.   Legend states that Mary gave me a bishop’s stole to indicate that I should be reinstated to my original position, but that never happened.  Legend also states that Jesus handed me a jewel-encrusted copy of the four gospels to show that I was preaching the true word of God.  Jesus gave me a jewel-encrusted copy of The Gospel of John, and that gospel only, and then Jesus told me that it has special significance to my spiritual history, but I’m not at liberty to explain why here.  The information brought me great joy and peace of spirit.”

“I bet!”

“When found with the bejeweled Gospel of John the next morning, Emperor Constantine insisted upon knowing how I had come to posses the marvelous book.  I shared the details of the divine visit, leaving out anything that would add confusion to the Council of Nicea and the teachings of the church at that time.  Those things which would sound like selfish, vain-glorious conjectures, I kept to myself.”

“Vain-glorious?”

“Hmm, egotistical.”

“Got it.”         

“In the end, I became known far and wide to be a generous person, and since I had elected to give my inherited wealth away and I had been allowed to bring the three slaughtered boys back to life, the church has made me the patron saint of gift giving and children.”

“And what happened to that Arias guy?”

“Oh, he’s still around, trying to overcome his ego and get closer to God.  Currently, he’s the head of an Internet church down in the South.”

“I hope that I never meet him.  I don’t think that I’d like him,” Katie responded, pounding her hands together.

“I finished my life here and left for home on December 6, 345 AD.  After a time, the Catholic Church took note of the miracles attributed to me and eventually made me a saint.  I was called St. Nicholas, which became the name Santa Claus when the little children left the ‘o’ out of Nich ‘o’ las and slurred the other syllables together.”

“Christmas is supposed to be about Jesus, so why did God allow this mythological Kris Kringle fellow to take up so much of the holiday spotlight?” Katie asked.

“Again, it is God’s intention to touch every heart with love at Christmas time.  Jesus touches the lives of those who are inside the church walls, and this mythical fellow Santa touches the lives of those who are outside the church walls.  At times, the assignments seem disproportionate because outside of the church, Santa is used by anyone who has an item to sell, or a cause that needs money.  For many people the character of Santa Claus has become more of a focal point to the season than the little babe who was born in the manger who came to show us all the way back to Heaven.  The jolly old elf in the red suit beams out at us from every nook and cranny, from every shelf and corner display, from every television screen and storefront, from the day after Halloween, all the way to the end of the calendar year.  That is when his outstretched cardboard arms invite us to take our pick from the hundreds and thousands of un-purchased gifts that are now wonderfully ‘marked down’ from their original, pre-Christmas price.”

“Sometimes it seems like the world prefers Claus-mass to Christmas,” Katie added.

“The message of love and giving does seem to get lost in the holiday clutter sometimes, but then the shiny souls of the world take notice and they go out of their way to bring everyone’s attention back to the real reason for the season.  Those who have God’s light within them are always looking for ways to pass that light on, and those who have darkness within them, are always looking for ways to take something away from another person.”

“This is the greatest dream ever!  Will I be able to remember everything that you’ve said when I wake up?”

“I know that you want to share with everyone that you know what we’ve talked about tonight, but this visit is a private one, just between you and me.  If you tell anyone that you spoke to Santa personally, no one will believe you.  Most people support the old saying that ‘Seeing is believing,’ and they don’t accept the possibility that ‘Believing is seeing.’  There’s only one thing that you need to remember from our little talk, and it is that God’s shiniest children volunteer to bring His love to the darkest and most difficult corners of the Earth.  You’ve lived a difficult and challenging life so far, and you’ve met quite a few difficult and challenging people.  You volunteered to bring a little light into their dark corner, and you must continue to have the strength to carry on, because what you are doing is very important.  To God there are no misfit toys.  Everything connected to love is connected to God, and there is no loving thought or gesture that doesn’t benefit this world in a significant way, even if you don’t see that benefit immediately.”

He reached into his pocket.

“I have a little present for you.  I know it doesn’t look like much, and it’s not nearly as ‘cool’ as a new Ipod or the latest fashion, but it is very special none-the-less.  Many children receive gifts in Santa’s name, but I am permitted, on special occasions, to give a few of my own gifts away, in person.”

Before her eyes, Nicholas transformed back into the image of Santa Claus, rosy cheeks and all.

“This little wooden ornament was made quite inexpensively by a loving old man in China.  He has outlived his family and it’s almost time for him to be called home.  He shares all the love that he has with everyone who crosses his path even if they are only the abstract recipients of the little ornaments that he helps assemble at the factory.  The ornament is one of tens of thousands of seemingly identical pieces, but what makes it different is that the man who made it had true love in his heart, and so there is a little piece of God’s energy hidden within.  It won’t do anything special or spectacular, like transform into a robot or whisper answers to help you with your next math test, but if you get quiet within yourself and think about what my giving it to you represents, you will feel just a little bit closer to God.”

“What a wonderful golden color.”

“Gold is indeed a wonderful color, like holding a little piece of the sun.” 

“It feels warm,” Katie said, inspecting the little ornament closely.

“Love is always warm, my Dear,” Nicholas said quietly.

“The world often feels so cold…”

“That is exactly why we must refuse to succumb to the temptation to be angry about things, and instead learn to find fragments of true love wherever we can.”

“My life has known a lot of anger,” Katie said, almost unheard as a single tear slid down her cheek.

“Without anger to cloud your mind and bring turmoil to your emotions, you’ll be able to find fragments of love in the most unexpected places.”

Katie became fixated on the tiny wooden ornament resting in her hand.  If she had seen it in the department store she probably wouldn’t have given it a second look.  It was made out of simple wooden shapes, some cloth and a bit of string.  It was just a little mouse sitting in a wooden chair with a cloth backing, suspended by strings attached to small dowels connecting the sides of the chair at the top and the bottom.  At the mouse’s feet were holly leaves and a pair of berries.  It wasn’t shiny and glistening, like some high-tech Hallmark ornament.  It was basic and minimalistic, like a tiny toy from a hundred years ago.  As she looked at it from every angle, she was struck by the wholeness of the craftsman’s efforts.  There was nothing artificial about the ornament.  It wasn’t made out of polymers and burped out of some soulless machine.  It was made of scraps of nature and assembled by caring human hands.  Realizing the significance of this thought, she looked up to realize that she was the only person awake in the room.  Her siblings, Angela and Brittany, were still snoozing away, and her supernatural guest had vanished.  This didn’t particularly surprise her, since she believed that she was immersed in an elaborate dream anyway.  As she carefully placed the mouse ornament on her nightstand, she wondered if she would remember what it looked like when she woke up the next day.

Overcome with exhaustion, she yawned and settled back down in her bed.  No matter what surprises Christmas morning brought her, certainly they could not compare to the surprises found in her Christmas Eve dream.

“Thank you for your visit, Santa,” she whispered affectionately, as she drifted off to sleep.  She thought that she heard, “Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night,” but that could’ve been the random fragment of some recently viewed Christmas special sliding around in her head.

Chapter 7

As in many homes on Christmas morning, the day began with youthful exuberance that attempted to wake generally exhausted adults without making them grouchy.  Katie heard Angela bustling about across the room and she slowly opened her eyes.  She focused on the foot of the bed, half expecting to see the little plastic Santa smiling back at her, but it wasn’t there.

Probably rolled onto the floor, she thought to herself as she stretched her arms to get her blood pumping.  She looked over at the nightstand, hoping that the little wooden ornament that she’d dreamed about being given would be there.  Seeing it would mean that the whole crazy dream was real, but there was nothing on her nightstand but her light.  A tiny bit sullen because the mouse wasn’t there, but realizing that it was a silly thing to expect to see in the first place, she got out of bed, almost knocking her older sister Brittany over, and she joined the slow migration to the living room and the presents waiting for them under the tree.  The major unwrapping couldn’t begin until her parents had gotten their morning coffee and found the camera, so the youngsters began their exploration with their stockings.  The gifts were sensible and thoughtful and Katie appreciated getting everything that she received, but whenever she glanced over at the tree, she couldn’t keep herself from looking carefully for one little wooden ornament, a cute little holiday mouse.  The third time she finished inspecting the tree, she concluded that she was wasting her time and that it just wasn’t there.  That was to be expected, she assumed, although she made a promise to herself to try to remember as much of her dream as possible.  Halfway through opening gifts, Katie bolted from the room to get some paper and a pen.  She didn’t want to forget a single thing, so she decided to write it down, just in case it all evaporated in her head, like a regular dream.

“Whatcha doing?” Angela whispered in Katie’s ear, “writing to Santa about what he forgot to bring you, like a new yacht?”

“Not exactly,” Katie replied cheerfully.  “It’s just a little Christmas story that I’m working on.”

“Well, make me the star of the story and give me my heart’s desire.”

“That will be hard to wrap,” Katie replied with a smirk.

“You’re right, so have it out in the driveway with a big bow on it.”  Angela laughed and said, “You always say, if you’re going to dream, dream big.”

“When are you two going to learn that very small also works, like diamond ring small?” Brittany quipped from the far side of the tree.

“Life isn’t really about collecting things,” Katie stated.

Angela just stopped what she was doing and looked long and hard at Katie.  “Who are you, and what have you done with the real Katie?”

“Maybe I’ve just rediscovered the real Katie.”

“Check her head for bumps.  She must’ve fallen on her head last night while asleep,” Brittany added.

Chapter 8

The holidays swept by, as Christmas breaks always do, and soon Katie found herself back at Thebes High.  She had spent a lot of time pondering her Christmas Eve visit and something had been lifted, taken away somehow, and she felt lighter, calmer, and more in control.  Her mind was no longer filled with frustration over what the people around her possessed.  She kept reminding herself that God’s greatest presents don’t fit into a box, and that realization meant that she was just as likely to receive them as the rich kids.

Under the main staircase she knew that she would find many of her friends, and those who weren’t there would be in the cafeteria, getting their morning Pop Tart or bagel.  Normally, she tried to gravitate towards those few places that gave her at least a fleeting sense of security, like under the stairs or at the back of the media center, but now she felt more adventurous and less concerned about what she would find wandering the halls alone.

Katie was not at all surprised to overhear the other students sharing stories of their expensive holiday trips, or of what they got from friends and family for Christmas.  Sometimes the discussions would be about sharing time with family and special friendship moments, but most of the talk boiled down to money spent and presents unwrapped.  For the first time in her life she didn’t feel that her life was somehow lacking. 

In fact, she felt as if she had received a gift that no one else had gotten.

She decided to see Mr. Freeman.  On her way to his room, she pondered whether or not to try to share her strange Christmas Eve experience.  She wasn’t sure that she could express what had happened to her without making it all seem silly.

She walked in and plopped her backpack down on the first student desk in front of Mr. Freeman’s teacher desk, where he was busy checking his holiday email.

“Morning, Mr. F., did you have a nice break?” Katie asked as she went to the white board at the front of the room and started writing a note for her friend.

“As usual, it all flew by too quickly, Katie.  My wife and I did as much nothing as we could possibly get away with, and you?  Did you stay out of trouble?” Mr. Freeman asked.

“As a matter of fact, I did,” Katie responded, stepping back to admire her message and her artwork.

“That’s wonderful.  No unwanted visits from the Ghost of Angry Father’s Past?”

“No, although I did have one very strange visit…”

“Cute ornament; where’d you get it?”  Mr. Freeman asked.

“What ornament?” Katie asked, turning around quickly.

“Why, the one you’ve got tied to your backpack.  Did a friend give it to you?”

At a loss of words for a moment, and almost certain that the ornament hadn’t been there when she grabbed her bag that morning, she replied, “Yes, a very good friend gave it to me.”

“Well, that was a nice gesture.  Did your friend make it?  It looks like a tiny wooden craft project of some sort. 

“No, my friend told me that it was made by a little old Chinese man, halfway around the world.”     

“How nice, did you get what you wanted for Christmas?” Mr. Freeman asked.

“Actually, no, but I think that I got what I needed,” Katie quietly responded.

“Well, then that was the best gift of all.  Not many people realize that the valuable things that we truly need don’t come in a box.”

Katie stared at Mr. Freeman for a second as her mouth dropped open ever so slightly.  She had the oddest sensation that something truly important had just happened, but her mind couldn’t quite step back enough to see the whole picture. 

“How did you know…?”

“I think that you should name your mouse Mortimer.  That was Walt Disney’s first choice, you know.  His wife, Lillian, didn’t like the name.  She thought that it sounded too pompous, and so she convinced him to change it to Mickey.”

“Mortimer it shall be, Mr. F.”

“Take care of Mortimer, Katie.  He won’t be the most durable or the most expensive gift that you’ll ever receive, but he may end up being one of the most important, because of what he represents.”

Katie heard the two minute warning bell.  She grabbed her backpack, hoping that she would get to her first hour class on time.  She didn’t want to start the New Year with a tardy.  Right after this thought flickered through her mind, she realized that she’d never really cared about being tardy before.

“Have a great New Year, Katie, and let it be the first of many more to come,” Mr. Freeman called out.

“I’ll try, Mr. F.,” and as she left, she noticed a small sign outside of the door that read “Nicholas Freeman – English.”  So many bizarre coincidences, she thought, and then she was caught up in the frantic waves of students all rushing to beat the tardy bell to their first hour class.

“God bless you, Katie,” Nicholas whispered, a smile on his face.

“Good Monday, class.  I hope all of your holidays were pleasant and memorable.  Welcome back to reality!”

The End