continued:

When all was quiet, Mom would cuatiously open the door, and we'd all burst into the living room. Or, at least I would burst. I'd be full of excitement, and start grilling dad about what he'd seen.

"Did you see him, Dad?"
"Oh yeah, I peeked around the corner of the davenport when he was putting the presents under the tree, " he'd answer.
Did you see his renideer?"
"Naw, I couldn't see them from behind the davenport, but I heard their bells when they took off."

That was enough for me. It never occurred to me to ask the really hard questions like: "If he had all that snow on his boots, how come he didn't track any into the house? Mom would have had a fit!" Or, "How come there aren't any tracks in the snow in our front yard?" By then, the only question I had was "Can we open the presents, now?"

When I got older and realized that Santa Clause was my Mom and Dad, and I had been lovingly duped: not just by Mom and Dad, but by my sisters, Christmas took on more meaning. One thing about Mom, though. She always made it clear that Christmas wasn't just about getting presents. The most important thing was that it was a time to celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus. Those first few years, Santa Clause and the baby Jesus got along real well together, and I loved them both. It wasn't until I was four or five that I realized that only Jesus was real."

(Just my belief, folks...)

Jerry