What if Santa Were Real?
What if Santa Claus were real? It’s a question that many of us have had since we were old enough to know the truth. How would he deliver the presents? What would the theological implications be of Santa? In this novella, a New York Times reporter gets a mysterious invitation to meet Santa at the North Pole. With the help of the United Postal Service, the reporter travels to the remote Alaskan town of Barrow, the northernmost place in the United States. When he arrives at the North Pole, the cynical journalist is confronted with a wonderous world that seems like make believe every December.
Excerpt
If you chart all the people who believe in Santa Claus, you will get a massive bell curve that rises sharply from age 3, peaking at just after age 6, and then falling swiftly from age 10. If one could zoom in on the right hand side of the curve, you would see that the numbers of adult “believers” was in the is in the one ten-thousandths of a percent range. Adult believers consist of mainly the mentally ill and handicapped.
I am in that group…well, the believer group, not the “special” one, although my editor, girlfriend, and family all are starting to wonder. In November a few years ago, I ended up on what seemed like a suicidal journey into the Arctic in search of Santa Claus. In discussing it with my editor and my girlfriend, we decided that most likely it was a hoax or some fiendish plot to harvest my organs. If it was a hoax, it was a well crafted one involving powerful hallucinogens.
I woke up one October morning around Columbus Day to find on my nightstand a letter addressed to me. It came in a red envelope made of thick paper with my name handwritten in script using a golden ink that shimmered in the light. I broke the wax seal on the back and withdrew a letter. The letterhead was emblazoned with a cross and two keys topped with a bishop’s mitre.
I wasn’t Catholic but it looked like something that St. Vincent’s or Sacred Heart might send out. Being a prominent journalist for a major newspaper in New York City I didn’t find a formal letter like this as anything strange. A letter purporting to be from Saint Nicholas himself, subtitled “Santa Claus” and from the North Pole, was strange.
My first reaction was to hand it to my girlfriend. “It’s a bit early for Christmas pranks, isn’t it?” She took the letter and read it.
“It wasn’t me.” Sitting up in bed, I handed her the envelope and remains of the wax seal. She sniffed it. “Smells like Christmas.” It did smell like pine trees and peppermint.
“Seriously,” I said, “who was this from?”
“Not me.”
“The only person who could have put it there while I was sleeping was you. Or you let one of my friends or co-workers in to put it there.”
“Why would I lie to you about a prank? It’s not even that funny,” she said.
I agreed. It wasn’t funny, but practical jokes weren’t intended to be humorous for the target (me). She was the only person who could have placed it there unless it was a burglar who had a thing about not stealing anything and leaving weird letters for people to find. With Christmas being two and a half months away, the better joke was someone purporting to find a secret memoir of Columbus, an invitation from the Great Pumpkin, or a ginned up letter from the White House to attend the Turkey Pardon ceremony.
My girlfriend got up and went to the bathroom. My phone would help settle this. Spinning up the living room “pet camera” to 100x speed, I’d see who went in and out of the bedroom overnight. A little before ten last night, my girlfriend’s digital doppelganger went to bed empty handed. If it was her, she had already concealed the note in our bedroom. For the next five minutes (in super-speed), I watched the dog and cat fly back and forth.
Then at about 3 AM I saw a faint line appear on the frame. Slowing down, the bedroom door cracked a tiny bit for only a single second. Just enough to tell that the door definitely was not closed. Neither the dog or cat stirred, so it couldn’t have been a burglar or a ghost. If it had been my girlfriend then the pets would have rushed the door begging to be let on the bed. Still, it was inconclusive.
At work, I asked around if anyone had given anything to my girlfriend to play a prank on me. No one fessed up. That left a few distant family members who were unlikely to do anything like that, let alone make the trip here, and two friends that had a practical sense of humor. As I neared the evening deadline, I had all but forgotten about it. That’s when my phone rang.
I must admit that I wasn’t really listening when I picked up the handset. The man greeted me by name. “This is Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus,” the caller said.
“I don’t know who this is, but the joke isn’t very funny. I don’t appreciate you convincing my girlfriend to lie to me about placing that letter on my nightstand.”
“No one is lying. I had an elf put it there.”
“We live on the 37th floor. The windows are sealed. There’s no chimney. She’s the only one who could do it?”
“Who is this?”
“I told you,” the caller replied.
“Saint Nicholas died…” my fingers flew on the keyboard as I typed in the search bar. “Like 1700 years ago. Santa Claus isn’t real.”
The man laughed. “You’re right, Santa Claus isn’t strictly real. But I am, and I have no compunctions for using him for my purposes and for the glory of God.”
Definity a church publicity thing, I thought. I was getting really frustrated. “Okay pal, you’ve got my attention. You want a story in the Times for how you’re some priest who dresses up as Santa Claus or whatever, I’ll write it. Just stop pulling my leg.”
“I’m not pulling your leg. You saw that my elf didn’t quite move fast enough to fool the frame rate of your pet cam.” This shook me. I didn’t tell anyone about that one-sec flash of the door opening, not even my girlfriend. “Your last major act of kindness was giving a $50 bill to two girls and their mother in the parking lot of the supermarket on Friday.”
My tongue was tied. I hadn’t meant to give them $50, but that was the only bill, aside from singles, I had in my wallet. The mom looked like she had a drug problem in the past and the two teen girls seemed very embarrassed to be begging with their mother in Manhattan. I felt reluctant to give them any money because I feared this was another one of New York City’s famous grifters and was slightly upset with myself that I didn’t have a ten or twenty instead.
The caller continued. “The girls hadn’t eaten that day; the mother in two days. They collected a few dollars and had you given them the ones in your wallet, the girls would have each gotten a cheeseburger at McDonalds. Instead the mother was able to buy a week’s worth of simple foods. Your selfless generosity and your lack of hesitation made all the difference in ways you will never know.”
All of this was impossible for the man to see, unless he had been the husband hiding in a car somewhere, that which I doubted. I took a different Uber to the store and back so he couldn’t have followed me home. A lump formed in my throat. Had it really been that kind of me? $50 wasn’t exactly pocket change to me, but I couldn’t deny I had a comfortable life. “How do you know that?”
I am in that group…well, the believer group, not the “special” one, although my editor, girlfriend, and family all are starting to wonder. In November a few years ago, I ended up on what seemed like a suicidal journey into the Arctic in search of Santa Claus. In discussing it with my editor and my girlfriend, we decided that most likely it was a hoax or some fiendish plot to harvest my organs. If it was a hoax, it was a well crafted one involving powerful hallucinogens.
I woke up one October morning around Columbus Day to find on my nightstand a letter addressed to me. It came in a red envelope made of thick paper with my name handwritten in script using a golden ink that shimmered in the light. I broke the wax seal on the back and withdrew a letter. The letterhead was emblazoned with a cross and two keys topped with a bishop’s mitre.
I wasn’t Catholic but it looked like something that St. Vincent’s or Sacred Heart might send out. Being a prominent journalist for a major newspaper in New York City I didn’t find a formal letter like this as anything strange. A letter purporting to be from Saint Nicholas himself, subtitled “Santa Claus” and from the North Pole, was strange.
My first reaction was to hand it to my girlfriend. “It’s a bit early for Christmas pranks, isn’t it?” She took the letter and read it.
“It wasn’t me.” Sitting up in bed, I handed her the envelope and remains of the wax seal. She sniffed it. “Smells like Christmas.” It did smell like pine trees and peppermint.
“Seriously,” I said, “who was this from?”
“Not me.”
“The only person who could have put it there while I was sleeping was you. Or you let one of my friends or co-workers in to put it there.”
“Why would I lie to you about a prank? It’s not even that funny,” she said.
I agreed. It wasn’t funny, but practical jokes weren’t intended to be humorous for the target (me). She was the only person who could have placed it there unless it was a burglar who had a thing about not stealing anything and leaving weird letters for people to find. With Christmas being two and a half months away, the better joke was someone purporting to find a secret memoir of Columbus, an invitation from the Great Pumpkin, or a ginned up letter from the White House to attend the Turkey Pardon ceremony.
My girlfriend got up and went to the bathroom. My phone would help settle this. Spinning up the living room “pet camera” to 100x speed, I’d see who went in and out of the bedroom overnight. A little before ten last night, my girlfriend’s digital doppelganger went to bed empty handed. If it was her, she had already concealed the note in our bedroom. For the next five minutes (in super-speed), I watched the dog and cat fly back and forth.
Then at about 3 AM I saw a faint line appear on the frame. Slowing down, the bedroom door cracked a tiny bit for only a single second. Just enough to tell that the door definitely was not closed. Neither the dog or cat stirred, so it couldn’t have been a burglar or a ghost. If it had been my girlfriend then the pets would have rushed the door begging to be let on the bed. Still, it was inconclusive.
At work, I asked around if anyone had given anything to my girlfriend to play a prank on me. No one fessed up. That left a few distant family members who were unlikely to do anything like that, let alone make the trip here, and two friends that had a practical sense of humor. As I neared the evening deadline, I had all but forgotten about it. That’s when my phone rang.
I must admit that I wasn’t really listening when I picked up the handset. The man greeted me by name. “This is Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus,” the caller said.
“I don’t know who this is, but the joke isn’t very funny. I don’t appreciate you convincing my girlfriend to lie to me about placing that letter on my nightstand.”
“No one is lying. I had an elf put it there.”
“We live on the 37th floor. The windows are sealed. There’s no chimney. She’s the only one who could do it?”
“Who is this?”
“I told you,” the caller replied.
“Saint Nicholas died…” my fingers flew on the keyboard as I typed in the search bar. “Like 1700 years ago. Santa Claus isn’t real.”
The man laughed. “You’re right, Santa Claus isn’t strictly real. But I am, and I have no compunctions for using him for my purposes and for the glory of God.”
Definity a church publicity thing, I thought. I was getting really frustrated. “Okay pal, you’ve got my attention. You want a story in the Times for how you’re some priest who dresses up as Santa Claus or whatever, I’ll write it. Just stop pulling my leg.”
“I’m not pulling your leg. You saw that my elf didn’t quite move fast enough to fool the frame rate of your pet cam.” This shook me. I didn’t tell anyone about that one-sec flash of the door opening, not even my girlfriend. “Your last major act of kindness was giving a $50 bill to two girls and their mother in the parking lot of the supermarket on Friday.”
My tongue was tied. I hadn’t meant to give them $50, but that was the only bill, aside from singles, I had in my wallet. The mom looked like she had a drug problem in the past and the two teen girls seemed very embarrassed to be begging with their mother in Manhattan. I felt reluctant to give them any money because I feared this was another one of New York City’s famous grifters and was slightly upset with myself that I didn’t have a ten or twenty instead.
The caller continued. “The girls hadn’t eaten that day; the mother in two days. They collected a few dollars and had you given them the ones in your wallet, the girls would have each gotten a cheeseburger at McDonalds. Instead the mother was able to buy a week’s worth of simple foods. Your selfless generosity and your lack of hesitation made all the difference in ways you will never know.”
All of this was impossible for the man to see, unless he had been the husband hiding in a car somewhere, that which I doubted. I took a different Uber to the store and back so he couldn’t have followed me home. A lump formed in my throat. Had it really been that kind of me? $50 wasn’t exactly pocket change to me, but I couldn’t deny I had a comfortable life. “How do you know that?”