Merry Christmas

One Christmas when I was a young girl probably about seven years old, my cousin, Betty and I were taken to a local department store to visit the Santa Claus stationed in the back of the store. As I sat on Santa’s lap whispering my secret list in his ear, a strange feeling came over me.

This Santa was familiar, but maybe it was just I was getting older and had seen a lot of Santa’s. It would be several years before I would discover the identity of the Santa.

It was the 1950s. The United States was still recovering from the hard times after World War II. My father, a former G.I. and my mother, a former Rosie, the riveter, had bought war bonds during the war and they cashed them in to help buy a tract house and soon started a family who would be known as the baby boomer generation.

My mothers’ parents lived some 90 miles away on a farm making money raising cotton, selling milk and eggs to local dealers. Each year between Christmas and New Years our family would make a trip to the farm and exchange gifts.

One particular year, my grandparents needed some extra money for their gifts. My grandfather, a burly, bearded fellow, heard that a local department store was hiring a Santa. He applied and was hired. He was a natural for the job.

One problem, there was no money for a Santa costume and the store did not supply one.

Della Oakley, my legendary thrifty grandmother who could create something from nothing almost, began to search for enough red fabric to make the Santa costume. My mother came to the rescue.

When my father returned from Europe after World War II, he brought with him not only war stories, but also contraband, a large German Nazi flag. The flag was fascinating to us as kids since it was hush hush that we had the flag hidden in the back of a closet in a cloth bag.

We would get it out occasionally to look at it, not really knowing the meaning of it, the flag was just so big and colorful. And as my mother thought just the right colors, red, white and black and just the right size to make a large Santa costume.

The flag was delivered to my grandmother to fashion the costume and to add some fluffy cotton to substitute for white fur. I am not sure if my father was wholeheartedly in favor of someone cutting up the flag, but my grandmother got it and soon it was being cut up and sewn into the costume.

That December, my grandfather dressed in his German Nazi flag Santa costume, sat in a large chair in the department store and heard the wishes and wants of lots of children including me and my cousin. We had no idea at the time that Santa was our grandfather.

So, good came from evil and a pretty nice Christmas tale it is, if I do say myself.

Merriest of Christmas to you all!