Olivia+Morales

<> ** // __ Santa’s not Real? __ // **  Christmas was coming! The most wonderful holiday of the season. So, of course being an eight year old girl I was being as sweet as a sugary candy cane. Why? Because SANTA was watching me, and he controls everything single thing during Christmas time! I couldn’t wait to make special brownies for him, choctastic and chewy, and to send my thousands and thousands of gifts I wanted. That was before my YOUNGER brother told me that Santa wasn’t real. Before my Christmas was a whirl of wondering. Before my innocence was shattered. Before his demented, dark, and dirt filled seven year old mind decided he should ruin my childhood. One of the only responsibilities to undertake that really required none. “I can’t wait until Santa comes Kevin. We have to write our listssss!” That was me. I chimed at him, kangaroo hopping towards our kitchen. “What do you want Kev? I want a kitty, new DS games, and a few board games.” “I want you to know Santa isn’t real!” He snarled, or as it sounded like in my mind. I dropped what I was doing. Everything flew around my head. “So you mean, to tell me, that the man who rides around the world in one night isn’t real? The man who eats the cookies you take time to make him? The one who receives your overloaded lists each year so he can give your gifts, in NOT real?” I contorted, defending my case like a lawyer in a court room. “Yes, Basically.” He was no match for me. I had a pocketful of evidence. “I don’t believe you. I’m asking Mom.” I stomped over to her room in a gorilla like fashion, knowing she was going to say what I wanted him to hear. “Mom, is Santa real?” “Of course he is, why would you ask that?” The judge agreed with my point of view. Case Closed. I tried putting on the best whimpering voice I could to seem innocent. “Because meany head over here told me he wasn’t.” “Don’t listen to him honey,” she said sympathetically. “he’s just repeating what he heard on T.V. or what one of his friends heard. KEHHHHH- VINNNNNNNN!!!! Come, here, now!” “Okay Mommy.” Like me, he was trying to sugar coat the situation. // Sucker upper //, I thought in my head. At the time I didn’t realize I did the same exact thing. “What did you tell your sister?” She had an interrogator’s voice on. “That Santa isn’t real. The truth.” “No, what one of your ignorant, bone head friends heard on T.V.! Now, if you don’t believe in Santa, you’re not going to get that many presents!” “Oh well,” he replied. She had a point. Now I was starting to question her reasoning. It sounded as if it were a contract. You believe in Santa to get presents. Maybe Kevin was right after all; Maybe there is no Santa Claus. I decided to be smart and change the overwhelming argument. “When’s Dad coming home?” “At five. Eat a snack, but don’t indulge yourself in food. We have to eat dinner in half an hour.” // Santa over-eats, That’s why he’s fat! // I thought to myself sarcastically. I knew if that came out of my mouth I would have gotten a fat slap in the back. She’s a strict mother, it’s just the way she was brought up. In a hungrily fashion, I searched through the cabinets as if I hadn’t eaten in three weeks. Finding what I’d been searching for, I opened the crinkly wrapper. Stringy and Strawberry, I chewed on a strawberry fruit roll-up. I was contemplating on my thought beforehand. We were learning to control what we eat in school. Santa’s a vacuum! He sucks up all the cookies we make for him every year, leaving crumbs in every nook and cranny of the living room. He doesn’t control what he eats. Eating billions of cookies each year, you’d think he would’ve exploded by now! Eventually, Dad came home, and dinner was devoured. A week flew by, and it was the day before Christmas Eve. Looking back now, I realize it was the first Christmas that didn’t feel like one. After what I had been told, I wasn’t really in the spirit. All I wanted were my presents. To have Christmas Eve fly by faster than the eternal confusion it resorted to be. To find out if there is a Santa Claus. To distract my busy-body brain, I scrambled to the T.V. searching for the remote. After finding it, I flipped through the channels faster than I could say my whole name, and decided to watch ABC. // Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus, // was on. That movie reminded me of the situation I was in. So much for distracting my mangled mind. The movie is about a girl who is doubting that Santa Claus is real. My situation is a girl(me) who is doubting if Santa Claus is real. My problem was solved. I concluded that Santa wasn’t real, but that I could still believe in him for fun. I would wait until it was silly to believe in him, and then stop believing. There’s no reason why little girl shouldn’t have fun on Christmas! Christmas came. The most wonderful holiday of the season. So, o f course, being an eight year old girl I had one of the influential Christmas’ I will ever have.