SANTA BECAUSE

As a little kid I didn’t have a lot of luck with Santa Claus. I mean I shouldn’t be too surprised, I had three pretty big strikes going against me; I constantly misbehaved, we had no chimney/fireplace, and I lived in a Christmas tree-less Jewish household. So the fact that I got anything from the chubby, white-bearded sleigh-jockey with the stale cookie breath, was sort of a ‘Christmas Miracle’… or maybe a minor ‘Hanukah How-About-That’.

I guess I should have been happy with the couple of small presents with “From: Santa” tags I received each year, but instead I dwelled on the fact that I never got the over-the-top sac-o-stuff haul that Saint Nick seemed to deliver to all the other children. I mean, I watched all the holiday cartoons, so I knew the routine. I’d have even settled for a pile of those Misfit Toys that the North Pole quality control department dumped on that deserted island.

After I grew up it all made sense. I mean, religion aside, during those years we were not really rolling in money. But it was important to mom that we kids did not feel slighted or left out. So even though we were the only Jews in our very Catholic German / Italian Queens neighborhood, she made sure we all got a couple of gifts from Santa as well as the usual uninspiring Hanukah ‘useful’ presents.

No wonder this was confusing for wee Lil’ Dan. I mean, how wacky was it to be a Jewy kid opening gifts from Santa, on a holiday we didn’t observe, that usually included kinda’ Hebrew-ish stuff like a dreidel.and chocolate gelt candy. That’s like a Buddhist vegetarian serving bacon wrapped shrimp to a kosher Rabbi and halal Imam at a Pagen solstice festival. I should mention though, that my grandmother’s birthday was December 25th, so we did not celebrate Christmas per se’, but instead had a big extended family dinner and all exchanged holiday gifts at her annual ‘birthday party’ (wink wink, nod nod).

Even as a child I recall thinking that the Santa story was a bit farfetched but living in New York City I had already seen some crazy-assed stuff. After your parents drag you around the streets of Lower Manhattan by Chinatown or into the bowels of the Subway, there is not much that seems inconceivable.  By those standards, a factory full of slave labor toy-making elfin folk, nose-glowing flying artiodactyls, or a jacked up red sled that could transport a fat guy around the world did not seem that impossible.

Oddly enough, my biggest issue was never with those parts of the story. Instead, I wondered how the hell Santa got into people’s houses. Chimney or not, I knew the way folks in the City quadruple locked their doors. I didn’t think St. Nick had a chance in hell of quietly sneaking into an apartment protected with a Schlage doorknob, a Medeco deadbolt, a metal reinforced door jamb, two chain door locks, and a large untrained guard dog.

The other thing I had a hard time with was the multiple Santas I’d see in different department stores, on the streets ringing bells, handing out store sale flyers, in parades… Mom explained away my confusion by saying most of them were Santa’s secret helpers. But you had to treat them all as real though, since you never knew for sure which one was the ‘actual’ Santa. For a little while I somewhat bought into her story, except for the real scummy Santas we’d occasionally see, with filthy unwashed suits, slipping-off dirty fake beards, a flask of bottom-shelf booze in their pocket, and a strong stench of urine. I knew they likely were not in the employ of CEO Kringle, but just in case I still behaved around them.

But even when seeds of doubt about Santa’s existence started popping into my head, who was I to say anything. I certainly was not going to be the only kid in the world that looked a gift-baring suspect Santa in the mouth.  For the sake of some free toys, I could overlook the gaping holes in the Santa backstory.

The real thing that kept tripping me up was that naughty and nice list thing. It didn’t make sense that Mr. Claus would only bring me one or two lame little gifts but gave my friend John across the street a big old bag of holiday booty. Santa brought him a gazillion Hot Wheels cars with miles of bright orange bendable loop-da-loop tracks and every imaginable GI Joe accessory to go along with his multiple bearded kung fu grip soldier “action figures” (if I called them dolls, he wouldn’t let me play with them). 

It made no sense; despite my propensity for obnoxia, I was still a million times better behaved than constantly-in-trouble John. Yet I never got a mountain of cool Hot Wheels. Instead, Santa brought me a hard plastic boring oval track Johnny Lightning race car starter set. That’s right, Johnny Lightning!!! You know who else had a Johnny Lightning race car set?  No one. That’s why none of you have ever heard of it.

My siblings were all quite a bit older than me, but apparently some of them experienced similar issues years earlier.  In an effort to help my sister Ellen feel better, mom hand-sewed a whole bunch of one-of-a-kind ‘couture’ Barbie clothes for her dolls, to offset the seemingly endless Barbie wardrobes that Santa dropped off to her friends each holiday. I’m sure she was teased her about it, which is why I think my sister was the most sympathetic one to my holiday Santa plight. 

Knowing mom would not really have a clue what I actually wanted, when I hit that quasi-believing age where I was hanging onto the Santa thing just to score some bonus stuff, my sister was the only one that pulled me aside and asked what gift I really wanted for the holidays. I told her I wanted a Beatles album.

I was too young to know one record from the other, but I knew I wanted one. I really liked the Beatles. My oldest brother had a few of their 45s that I later permanently ‘borrowed’ when he left for college, and my sister had several of their albums. Her favorite was Beatles 65 which I think she wore out the grooves on and had to replace it. I was pretty young, but I still remember watching the cheesy Beatles cartoon with my brother and sister. Though I think what really got me hooked was when we stayed eyes glued to the TV one of the nights they showed the Beatles movie Help.  It was wacky and silly fun like the Jerry Lewis movies I loved but had really good music too.

So that year on Grandma’s Birthday (i.e. Christmas), Ellen gave me The Beatles’ Yesterday and Today album. She later admitted she picked that one because she did not have it yet. That way she could borrow it or if I did not like it, she could just keep it. She did something similar when I was about to start Junior High. To prevent me from getting too beaten up, she gave me the type of jeans jacket that was popular with the cool kids at the time. Of course, I grew out of it within a year, and she simply took it back and wore it for ages. But I never gave up that Beatles record. I still have it. Along with the Magical Mystery Tour one she gave me the next year.

I have been a somewhat obsessive Beatles fan ever since, so folks like me kind of had mixed emotions a few weeks ago when what was billed as “the final new Beatles song” was released. An old John Lennon original home demo recorded before his assassination, was mixed with the late George Harrison’s guitar work that was recorded on a previous attempt to use the low-quality cassette tape for a song back in the 90s. With modern technology, the two still living Beatles, Ringo and Paul, were able to add new instrumentation and background harmonies. And voila, ‘Now And Then’, a new Beatles song with all four members playing on it.

Some folks like the song, others hate it. My friend Allyson, who I first bonded with in High School over our mutual love of Beatles music, made the best comment about it that I have heard. After realizing later in the day that the hook of the song got stuck in her head after only hearing it only once, she said, “yup, that’s a Beatles song.”

I personally liked the tune a lot, but I am not sure if it’s because of the song itself or due to the Beatles memories it churned up and the emotion of it being ‘the final Beatles song’.  Either way, it’s kind of impressive that my favorite band when I still got gifts from Santa, is still my favorite band today when I look older than Santa. And because I likely did not say it at the time all those years ago, thank you Ellen for my first two Beatles albums (even though your kindness was a tiny little bit self-serving, that just makes me respect you more) and thank you mom for all the Santa gifts (even the lame Johnny Lightening race car set).  

YUP, THATS ME IN THE BACK.

183 BUCKS ON EBAY????? I SHOULD HAVE SAVED MINE.