In this particular rural community, children knew it wasn’t really and truly the Christmas season until the annual party. It was a tradition made dear by repetition.
The party was organized for kids, Mom said, but there were plenty of grown-ups there too, some of them delivering the Christmas cards they hadn’t mailed yet. Like Mom did.
The tiny hall, once a one-room schoolhouse, was decorated by elves, as Mom would mention. Those same elves would get the clunky furnace started early in the day so it would whoosh and wheeze its warmth into all four drafty corners by nightfall.
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There was always a program, and Mom said kids should all do their part to make Christmas nice for others, even if they were scared to get up in front of grown-ups. Some kids would sing solos. Some would sing together. The kids forced to take piano lessons would play piano lesson songs. The grown-ups would clap.
Then everybody would sing Christmas carols, reading the words from dog-eared, mouse-eaten song sheets that had been stored in the cloakroom since last year.
The carols would progress from Away in a Manger through Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. Then, during Here Comes Santa Claus, along would come Santa Claus.
Each kid would sit on Santa’s knee, even the shy ones who got scared and cried. But Dad would say there was nothing to be scared of. And Mom would say kids should do as they were told and be good because Santa was watching to make sure they were nice instead of naughty tonight and every night right up until Christmas and maybe even after that.
Some years Santa would be skinny and some years he would be fat. One year – and certain kids might be mistaken about this because they drank a lot of orange-flavoured Cragmont soda – but still, they say that one time, Santa had breasts.
But at the time Mom said she didn’t think that could be true and Dad just laughed and turned beet red and didn’t say anything at all.
Santa’s beard was always ratty and crooked. Dad would say it was probably ratty because of the same mice that ate the song sheets, but Mom would say hush, it’s just that Santa is so busy making toys that he can’t be combing his beard all the time.
Then, with a Ho! Ho! Ho!, Santa would disappear and everyone would have more pop and cookies.
Then, and only then, would it be really and truly Christmas.
