(no subject)

Let's talk Santa Claus. Now, on someone else's comments I said that I couldn't remember when I stopped believing. After a little more thought, I realized this was because I couldn't remember a time I did. I do remember, however, around seven going up to my parents and saying: "Tell 'Santa' that I want this for Christmas." and getting some unamused looks.

My parents loved Santa Claus. At the height of their mania, they put dried deer poop by the fireplace. The memory gets a little fuzzy around this point. I either hysterically blocked it out like I do a lot of stuff from my childhood when I can't remember what happened after the bizarre circumstance, or it was cleaned away in shame at what they'd done.

It's not that the idea of Santa Claus is unbelievable and I was a totally intelligent child. No, I did shit like leap off high places with an umbrella to pull a Mary Poppins. No, it's just that even at age five I was already an atheist and believing in things was something I was really really shitty at.

Also, I was a horrible child so the fact I kept getting awesome gifts was really suspicious.

It was a perfect storm.

(disclaimer: I believed with all my heart in the tooth fairy and when some neighbourhood girls ruined that for me I vowed to never let this horrible crime get repeated so now I'm Batman so I kept my feelings on the existence of magical people to myself. Except to my parents, who got me as cynical as possible as I tried to maximize my gift potential. Has any parent tried to give their kids coal to teach them a lesson?)

But. I did love the whole thing about Santa. The letters that the post office would write replies to, waking up in the morning to gifts you hadn't been poking at for a month (all the while screaming 'TELL ME YOUR SECRETS' at those poor boxes), the Santa Claus parade, going to see Santa at the mall (one year it was my uncle in the suit!), and I've always really liked Santa's design. Coke design, original, I liked 'em all. It helps my Grandfather and my other uncle could have passed easily for Santa Claus if you just put them in red, so I'd probably just imprinted on the big fat white man with a white beard thing like a baby duckling.

But man. Deer poop, mom&dad?

What're your Santa memories?