The Sunday Memory Drawer - Waiting for Santa

I wasn't waiting for these guys, although they might be more fun. But, back when I was still believing in St. Nick, I fussed enormously over his arrival at 15th Avenue in Mount Vernon. Actually, I was probably a five-year-old obsessive compulsive about Santa's entrance every Christmas Eve.

I didn't last long as a believer. I probably wasn't more than seven years old when the kid up the block, that dastardly Monte, killed it all for me when he relayed that all my Christmas presents from Santa were being hid in his house. But, until that fateful message, I bought into all the myths. The rooftop sleigh. Rudolph. The slide down the chimney.

Except, as I worried, we didn't have a chimney. Well, not one that was open. There was a pseudo-fireplace in our house downstairs in my grandmother's dining room. But, it was cemented shut and probably hadn't been used since Eleanor Roosevelt had straight teeth.

"How is Santa Claus going to come into our house?"

The answer confused me.

"He has a key."

Huh? If I had started to think about this implausibility, I would have stopped believing right then and there.

"So he knows that our fireplace is closed?"

The answer addled me some more.

"We tell him ahead of time."

Huh?? So, there are conversations with the man prior to the visit. When does this happen? And, if there has been a previous dialogue with Santa, how come the guy doesn't know to rinse out the glass after he downs the milk and cookies? Because, frankly, at our house, nothing freaked out my mother more than a dirty glass left to linger.

If there were personal meetings going on with Santa Claus, I wanted to be in on the action. In my small kindergarteny mind, I deduced that, with this front door key, Santa Claus would have to go up the narrow staircase to where our tree was. And a great way to do that would be to block the stairs.

Sometime, in the darkness of Christmas Eve, I pulled Zippy the Chimp and went to sit on the staircase. Nobody was going to get past me. I was going to be the sentry of our house and meet the guy with my own eyes.

And that's where they found me asleep in the morning.

Huh?

Up in the kitchen, there was a dirty glass drained of milk. How the heck did this happen???

Years later, I wound up on the flip side of this obsession. I was living in Yonkers next door to good friends. I was little Jason's unofficial uncle. And every Christmas Eve, we would get together to hang out until the wee hours. I even got to be the one to gobble up the milk and cookies dutifully left by Jason.

One year, at around 1AM, Jason bounced downstairs from his bedroom.

"Uncle Lenny, go home!!! Santa won't come if you're still here drinking!"

Dinner last night: BBQ Ham at Virgil's BBQ.