Secret Santa
a Christmas Eve story
King of the Hill to miserable worm.
Late December of 1952 was not a good time for me. In September of that year, I entered First Grade at Immaculate Conception School in Astoria, NY. This may sound like an ordinary passage, and in some ways it was. But I was the eldest.
“Good morning, Number One,” Dad would say, ala Charlie Chan, when I padded, sleepy-eyed, into the kitchen every morning.
In my family, I valiantly blazed the unmapped trail to each new frontier. And so, the transition to First Grade was momentous. Set aside the full-day schedule, impressive all by itself. My graduation from Mrs. Mulqueen’s kindergarten introduced a series of “firsts.”
The ‘Tude!
To begin with, kindergarten kids wore everyday clothes. As a First-Grader, I had a brand-new worsted wool uniform. It was a dark blue jumper, virtually indestructible, with stiff pleats in front and a three-inch hem. It was worn with a white cotton blouse, blue knee socks, black and white saddle shoes, and a beanie. Over the heart, a small patch with the ICS logo identified me as a student at the school, as if the full regalia didn’t tell the whole tale.
“Well, you’ll grow into it,” my grandmother said the first time I tried it on. I’m sure it was at least two sizes bigger than I needed. People in my neighborhood pinched every penny.
Because I was the first born, my uniform was brand new. My sister would eventually get the hand-me-downs. I had a new book bag, two new, sharpened, no. 2 pencils, a soft, bubble-gum pink eraser, and a box of eight crayons.
I felt like the cat’s meow.
The freedom!
For a six-year-old, being out of sight of adult supervision is the definition of freedom. Except that my mother wanted to walk the four blocks to the school with me.
“I can go by myself,” I argued. “I know the way.”
“The traffic is too busy in the mornings,” my mother insisted. This was quite prophetic on her part.
There was one scary intersection to negotiate, with a lot of traffic and no signal. That intersection, 24th Avenue and 27th Street, would be forever memorialized in our family as the site of not one, but two, low-speed collisions between an automobile and one of my brothers, Number Three in the Helmes hierarchy. According to family lore, Number Three suffered no notable injury from either event, but that remains a matter of opinion.
It was weeks before a compromise was reached. Mom saw me safely across 24th Avenue, and then I was on my own. Free to explore. The other avenues didn’t have signals, either, but traffic was much lighter. By the time I reached the final intersection at Ditmars Boulevard, there was both a traffic light and a grandfatherly crossing guard.
The power!
As the eldest, I enjoyed a never-ending stream of birth-order benefits. In addition, being the “school kid,” brought with it a certain cachet. My sister, Number Two, was not quite four, and my brother, Number Three, was still in diapers, for Pete’s sake. He slept in a crib and was just learning to walk. He was a one-year-old non-entity. I called the shots. Starting with the new black-and-white RCA TV.
The reception was spotty at times, and the afternoon line-up, even in a large metropolis like New York City, was limited. There were the three major networks vying for viewership, but cable was nowhere to be found. We didn’t know from PBS.
Each afternoon after dutifully completing my homework, I’d march into the living room and make an announcement to those assembled.
“We’re watching the Howdy Doody Show.”
There simply was no argument. Number Two could throw a fit, but the channel would not be changed to watch Time for Beanie. Game playing followed the same general format.
Whether the choice was jump-rope or board games, the eldest ruled.
The inside scoop!
Now here was the real power. Hanging around with other First Graders was heady enough. But as the fall progressed, I found the little niches on the playground where the older kids lurked.
Being a Catholic School, there was a small grotto between the school and the rectory, the preferred hangout for a group of the Third Graders. They would move from primary recess to middle school recess when the next school term started in January.
Until then, Third Graders knew all there was to know. While lowly First Graders were usually chased away, a clever girl could slip behind a hedge and listen in.
And that’s exactly how I got the skinny on Santa Claus. It was during that dreary season between Thanksgiving and Christmas. My new uniform was wrinkled; the knee socks were so stretched that one of them scrunched into a puddle over a scuffed oxford. The eraser had broken into two pieces and was so hard that it invariably tore a hole in my copy paper, and the walk to school had lost its mystique. The blocks seemed longer, the days seemed grayer, and one of my woolen gloves had a hole in the thumb.
It was sometime during that gloomy season, marked by low light and persistent rain, that I overheard the following exchange:
“… like I said, Santa is made-up. It’s just for little kids. The parents buy the presents.”
“Who told you that?”
“(indistinguishable) … then my brother bopped me off the side of the head and called me a moron.”
“What does he know?’
“He’s twelve. He knows more than you, you retard.”
“Yeah, but …”
“Sister’s coming. Shut it.”
In that way, I learned the truth. There was no Santa. It was all a hoax. These nine-year-olds wouldn’t lie about something so important.
Santa was made up for little kids. This was the crushing blow. Maybe being a big kid wasn’t so great. Demoralized, I slinked away to think it over.
I let slip little hints for Number Two, but I was cagey about it. It was all too upsetting. If I said it out loud, would I make it true? If I admitted that I didn’t believe, would Christmas come to a screeching halt for me? I stewed over this for days on end. Who could I trust? Who’d tell the truth?
“This is really bad,” I remember thinking.
I’m pretty sure I cried.
The dilemma!
Things came to a head the Saturday I refused to write a letter to Santa. This was a big deal at 24-29 27th Street. Mom marked it on the wall calendar right after Thanksgiving, around the time the Advent Wreath made its appearance.
I can still see the date, December 20th, decorated with a big Santa sticker. The next day was marked with a Cake-with-Candles sticker, being Number Two’s 4th birthday. I shrugged off both events when my mother discussed plans at dinner a few days before the weekend.
‘I’d rather watch Saturday morning cartoons,” I said.
I wasn’t as adept at reading parental expressions as I’d become a few years down the road, but even I noticed my mother’s raised eyebrow. She said nothing, though.
My sister, on the other hand, waylaid me in our shared bedroom as we crawled into our twin beds that evening.
“Don’t you want to write a letter to Santa?” she asked, a little warble in her voice.
“Nope.”
“But how will he know what you want for Christmas?”
“Go to sleep.”
I’m sure there was more said that night, and on the nights that followed, but I stuck to my guns. The Saturday morning letter-writing event arrived, and I switched on the TV.
As luck would have it, there was a blustery rainstorm, and reception was horrible. Even with the aluminum foil strips fluttering off the rabbit-ears antenna, there was nothing but snow on the screen.
Disgusted, I sat at the kitchen table and made a big production out of drawing a picture of a poodle instead of writing a letter. My mother helped Number Two make a list. My father kept Number Three amused.
The stand off!
My personal version of ‘circling the wagons’ followed.
I didn’t have any Christmas spirit. I knew the truth, and I couldn’t be persuaded that I ‘better not pout.’ Because Santa ‘knows if I’ve been bad or good.’
My mother bombarded the family with Christmas Carols and Elf Stories. To no avail, from my perspective. Looking back, I was probably obnoxious.
Now, it’s very possible that my mother wheedled the playground story from me. She had skills. But, if she did, she was very nonchalant about it. I can’t recall any Santa conversations during the next few days.
School had adjourned for Christmas Break. I sulked. It was too rainy to play outdoors. Tempers flared as the indoor confinement got on everyone’s nerves.
At some point – I believe it was after a Time for Beanie showdown - Number Two shoved me, and I fell into the pointed corner of the coffee table, which caught me on the outside corner of my left eye. Decades later, there’s still a faint scar, but no permanent damage was done.
But, by the time a drop of iodine had been carefully applied, along with a tiny band-aid, I was aggrieved enough to let loose with my miserable revenge.
“THERE IS NO SANTA!” I yelled, forcing Number Two into a four-alarm meltdown.
Now I’d done it. I’d crossed the Rubicon. With her face buried in Mom’s skirt, she bawled loud enough to divert attention away from my near catastrophe. I might need an eye patch. Like Captain Hook. But she got hugs.
Not fair.
The hubris!
My mother was pretty upset with Number One by this point. Sensing her displeasure and not wanting to wait around to find out what would happen when “your father gets home,” I retreated to my bedroom and threw a bedspread over my head.
By the light of the heavy, green army flashlight, I read my Madeline book again and again, which took me far away from home until I fell asleep.
“In an old house in Paris covered in vines.”
Things were still tense the next day, which was finally Christmas Eve. Mom surprised me by saying nothing about my outburst the previous afternoon. Something weird was going on.
There was a planned visit to our Nanny and Poppy, where candy canes and small presents were found on their Christmas Tree. My grandfather gave me a shiny silver dollar. I sure wish I’d saved it for a rainy day, as he suggested.
But in Astoria, a candy store was always within a block or two of wherever you were. The silver dollar didn’t last long. The grandparents’ gifts didn’t soften my heart. Okay, maybe there would still be presents, but Santa was a big, fat lie.
The day edged toward evening. We had an early supper, and we were told to get ready for bed. I can see myself, skinny as a toothpick, wearing a fire-engine red union suit for pajamas, baggy in the seat, but warm. I made no objection to the early bedtime. This wasn’t my first Christmas Eve.
This year, though, I had something to prove.
Time passed like an afternoon practicing the 4x table. My ears pricked at every sound. Ours was a two-bedroom apartment with all the actual rooms on the right side. On the left, two curvy passages, a front hall and a back hall, met at the Living Room, right in the center.
The kitchen was the nearest room to the front door. Off the back hall, a bathroom came first, followed by two bedrooms. The living room didn’t even have a chimney.
Exhibit One in my mind, although I lacked the legal term.
The living room was separated from the kids’ bedroom by the width of the tiled bathroom. Surely, I could stay awake long enough to catch my sneaky parents at their prank.
The Christmas Tree, the scene of the anticipated crime, was only one room away. I was positive I’d catch them in the act. But I didn’t account for my mother’s cunning.
The denouement!
Despite my best intentions, I nodded off. When I awoke, the apartment was as dark as the back closet with the door pulled shut. A sudden sound intruded, which, funnily enough, seemed to awaken only me.
It must be Mommy and Daddy setting out the presents, I decided.
I slipped out of my room and listened at their closed bedroom door. Nothing. Tip-toeing so deliberately that my heels never hit the carpet, slinking and sliding with the curved wall as a guide, I made my way to the living room.
By the light of two electric candles sitting atop the fake mantel, I saw a large shadow moving in the corner. When it emerged from the far side of the Christmas Tree, the shock set me back on my butt with a thud. There, festooned in a red suit and a flowing, white beard was Santa. His back was to me, and I couldn’t see his face. But give me a break! It had to be him.
My heart was thumping in and out beneath my union suit like something in a Saturday morning cartoon. I imagine my mouth formed a perfect “o.”
As if sensing my presence, Santa gathered his large canvas bag and scampered toward the front door, on the other side of the winding front hall. I scrambled up, my skepticism newly aroused as the shock faded.
It’s probably daddy all dressed up, I thought.
Intent on confirming my suspicions, I turned. But there, emerging from their own bedroom, were Mommy and Daddy, hand in hand, wondering what I was doing out of bed. My dad had a few tricks of his own, but he wasn’t Houdini. As we stood looking at each other, I heard the soft click of the closing front door.
How the mighty have fallen!
I was only six years old, but I wasn’t a dummy. If anyone could add two plus two, it was me, the eldest. And I knew, at that very moment, that I’d been totally and completely wrong. I’d overheard some kid saying that Santa was a hoax, and I’d bought the story, hook, line, and sinker.
What a moron!
I was destroyed. I was going to lose my important standing with the underlings; to wit, Number Two. Hadn’t I opened my big mouth and made a fool of myself just two days ago?
It was horrible. If I wasn’t top dog in my own family, what was I? A big, fat zero, that’s what! I would have slunk under the carpet, but it was tacked down. All I could do is sink to the floor in dejection and pick at the tight loops.
Luckily, my mother was understanding. As my father went to the front door to “check things out,” she sat down beside me in the open jamb that led to the living room and stroked my curly, disheveled hair.
As she heard my astonishing tale about seeing Santa, she wrapped me in a warm hug and told me that everything would be just fine. I sobbed that I had told everyone that I knew the truth about Santa.
Mom was unfazed. She reminded me that “everyone” only meant my sister. I could explain my mistake to her in the morning.
“But …” I said weakly.
Rushing on, my wise mother also pointed out that there was no need to mention what happened at our house tonight to those pesky Third Graders.
“This will be your special secret to keep,” my mother assured me. “Santa doesn’t usually allow himself to be seen. This must have been a gift, especially for you. If you talk about it, it won’t be special anymore.”
That Christmas Day was a magical affair. I can’t recall exactly what Santa brought that year. I have a mental image of identical baby dolls for Number Two and myself, sitting in identical pink highchairs beside the glowing Tree.
Number Three might have gotten a wagon, but I can’t be sure. A red wagon cluttered the hallway leading to our apartment’s front door for many years, but I’d be lying if I claimed I knew for sure it had arrived on that Christmas.
The wonder of seeing Santa erased any other impression from my mind. It convinced me that Christmas was a magical season of hope and joy. More than anything else, it tempered my jaded, six-year-old heart.
The atonement!
Eventually there were additions to the family. Number Four arrived in 1958, and Number Five followed in 1960. Charlie Chan was in syndication by then, and the numbering of one’s progeny had fallen by the wayside. Or maybe, my dad’s legendary sense of humor was becoming a bit strained as the family kept growing. I use the numbers now only for continuity.
I was safely past adolescence when Santa’s appearance was finally explained. We’d moved from the basement on 27th Street to a fourth-floor walk-up on 28th Street. The growing family required an additional bedroom and a bigger apartment.
Territorial arguments happened less often, but they hadn’t completely disappeared. The secret finally emerged when I overheard Number Three irritably promise Number Two that, if they didn’t leave his stuff alone, he’d tell our younger brothers, then aged six and four, that Santa wasn’t real.
Newly guilt-stricken over my own transgression twelve years earlier, I enlisted my mother’s help. I was a first-year college student, immersed in my own challenges, but I didn’t want the magic of Christmas spoiled for the little kids.
My mother, an old hand at parenting by 1964, waved off my concern.
“Leave it to me,” she said.
“Will Santa make another appearance?” I wondered.
“Sadly, no,” she replied. “Your Uncle Ally died a few years after his debut as Santa.”
“Uncle Ally?” I marveled, remembering my father’s older brother, Albert. “He had to have been pretty young when I was six.”
“He was… let me see. It was shortly before his diagnosis. He’d have been thirty-six. He had such a good time that night. He almost burst out laughing at the expression on your face.”
“I’ll never forget that Christmas,” I sighed.
My mother gave me one of her warm hugs.
“Good,” she said, enfolding me in a tight squeeze. “That’s what your dad and I were hoping. Keep the memory alive. It will make all your Christmases special. You can always share the secret when the time is right.
From: Holiday Tales from the San Juans
2025 (Available on Amazon)
