January 2021

Santa's Visit

For the December “Christmas” blog I shared an excerpt from a short story I wrote entitled “The Reluctant Santa.”  In truth, it was semi-autobiographical, as through the years I have many times donned the red and white, often by choice, other times very reluctantly “volunteered” to the task.  Christmas 2020 was both.

I must admit that I approached this just past Christmas in a bit of a slump. Months of Covid-19 related isolation, the loss of a job and worse a string of losses of dear life-long friends (I realize how precious they were, and how few live ones remain).  My melancholy mood was magnified in a masked trip to town to purchase Christmas cards. In a favorite market I carefully perused racks and racks of Holiday cards. For the first time I can recall, not a single one had a religious motif. The closest was an artist’s depiction of a Christmas star blazing above two snow-topped spruce trees.  Santa Tony slumped.  Momentarily took the starch out of me. The soul of Christmas was missing.

I arrived back home to find that my wife Camille had “volunteered” me for a neighborhood gig, a safely-distanced trailer-back “Ho-Ho-Ho” ride through our large development, to deliver treats and Christmas cheer to waiting curbside kiddies.  Too late to back out, I reluctantly conceded.  And as has happened every time in the past, it proved to be an energizing, glorious event, even when one little guy at that pivotal age between awe and disbelief, after being handed his little bag of goodies by one of the two attendant masked elves’, got a closer look at me and shouted, “Hey, you’re not Santa, you’re just an old man with a fake beard under your mask.”  Yes, and no. To all the rest of the little guys, I was indeed Santa, and I loved it.  It has been a really rough year, and it showed in the faces of the parents. But when kids get all excited, it is contagious. To see their little ones happy, for a moment lifted a load on and rejuvenated visibly stressed parents. Their faces for a moment glowed. You have to see it from Santa’s chair. It’s beautiful. 

An added bonus for me was that it was a not too hot glorious sunny day, with a bit of a light breeze, so tolerable under wig, heavy beard, mask, felt hat, and heavy suit.  And sitting high up on an open-air throne in the back of a slow moving trailer was a great way to really see the neighborhood.  No one seemed to mind that Santa’s sleigh was pulled by a Ram (Charger) rather than Rudolph.  

The next day my wife and I drove to Santa Fe.  It was a long drive. Took us over twelve hours. I’m told some people can do it in ten. But I am an old man, driving an old car. Well-suited to each other, we just poke along, grateful that though we both creak, we can still move.  Camille and I weighed the visit against the Covid threat.  In the end the entreaties of our two daughters, quarantined for months  up there, won out. “Dad, you’ve told us countless times at your age you are way past all your warranties.  We need you before the breakdown. Age is as great a threat to you now as the virus. We hunger to see you.  We’ve taken all the precautions we can. You guys have too.  Come. Please come.” 

We came.

We’d been to Santa Fe before at Christmas.  Magical. This time it was radically different. Though festively decorated with it’s traditional beribboned boughs and luminaries, this most unique of cities was this Christmas day nearly a ghost town.  Historic City plaza, usually a bustle of activity, sat silent and virtually empty, locked in a mid-winter pandemic torpor, with God’s grace soon to be lifted.

I had taken my Santa suit, to pay a masked socially-distanced Christmas visit to cheer some little girls my daughters have taken under their wings, “big-sister” mentor fashion.  At both homes, I jingled my brass bells, and the girls peered out their doors in delighted surprise. We left goodies and small gifts.

I had taken an extra Santa’s cap, and on impulse decided to leave it with the smallest girl.  I told her I always take an extra cap on my trips, in case one gets blown off in the wind as I traverse the heavens. “But this year the weather cooperated, so I didn’t need it.  I’d like you to have it, Miriam.” I don’t know what I expected her to say to that, but was surprised by her simple, innocent “OK,” as if it was the most natural thing in the world.  But then again, it should be, shouldn’t it? 

In the heart of old town, not far from the Catholic Basilica that crowns Santa Fe’s plaza, is a bronze statue of St. Francis of Assisi, kindly looking down at a chubby groundhog.  It is at once whimsical, and yet profound.  Good karma for those that pause and reflect. It had snowed in Santa Fe, and was cold. Someone had sewn a tiny red cape, and attached it around the little creature. Yeah!

Our last quick stop (wife, daughters Clara & Rachel, and I) was in front of the locked Basilica Cathedral for a quick “Thanks for everything” prayer.  What a gift we were given. Still buoys us after 2000 years.

Back in Arizona, the red suit is mothballed for another year.  But not the memories. Nor the best wishes. May this New Year we’ve just entered, cloak you in good health, good cheer, and good heart.

Anthony de la Torre
Sun City Grand resident