December 23, 2021 at 2:05 p.m.
Happy Christmas to all and to all ...
Happy Christmas to all and to all ...
It was Santa Claus!
Santa wanted to sit down and talk, and we gladly granted him the stage. After all, we've been trying to score this interview for years. He told us he had just a few minutes - it was the day before Christmas and he was busy - but he wanted to say hello.
We must admit we were a little nervous, and perhaps afraid we were on his naughty list. We couldn't think of a single reason why anybody would put us, of all people, on one of those, but you never know. He sure wasn't going to ask us to sit on his lap and tell him what we wanted for Christmas.
Or maybe he had an agenda, we thought. Perhaps those elves of his were trying to organize a union again, and he wanted to make a public plea. Maybe he just wanted to know what the Covid protocols were for driving an open sleigh outside in the sky.
As it turned out, it was none of those things. He settled in, and we offered him milk and cookies, and he was ho so nice. Well, except when we said he was looking good but maybe had put on a few more pounds. If looks could kill.
Anyway, after muttering something under his breath about bags of switches, he was back to his jovial self, those extra pounds shaking merrily like a bowl of jelly.
He said he wanted to offer our readers some of his Christmas thoughts. He said he was going to every newspaper in the world - at least those that would still have him - and offer the same thoughts.
Most of all, Santa just wanted everybody to know how excited he was to visit all the world's children after such a tough and trying couple of years.
"I just hope all the children out there are doing well in school and are working hard," Santa told us. "I hope they keep their teachers in their prayers and listen to them. Of course their families, too, and their friendships and all the animal members of their family."
Santa told us this year had been really special to him because so many parents - he thinks all of them in the world - reached out to him, by phone and by letter, to tell him how special their children were, how much they loved them, and to give them a list for him to consider.
"It was a record year, every parent reaching out, except for a few whom I'm sure tried, but sometimes in the North Pole the cell connection isn't exactly what you'd like," he said.
Still, what a bounty of love Santa said he saw in humankind, so much love that there was enough to spread around to every living soul.
"And that's what you do every year, Santa," we told him. "You spread love to all the children!"
Santa just beamed.
"Well, I do what I can," he said. "If I just leave behind more joy and good will than there was before, I consider it a good Christmas."
Santa leaned forward, and giggled: "Let me tell you a secret. Inside every present I leave under the Christmas tree, there's an invisible potion of good will. The children get it all over them, and they spread it to their parents, who spread it to their neighbors, who spread it to all the world."
"It's the magic of Christmas, Ho! Ho! Ho!" he said with a wink of his eye and a twist of his head.
Alas, Santa said not everything was perfect.
"I really hate it when they put me in those car ads and commercialize me," he said, shaking his head and stroking his beard. "Plus, I'm a sleigh guy, you know, but you don't ever see them make any newer models of those. If they just had a hybrid sleigh, you know, to spell the reindeer."
Santa sighed.
"Don't get me started," he said. "What are you gonna do? I really can't complain. You got any more of those cookies?"
Santa also allowed as to how, due to his advancing age, sometimes a house or two that is hard to see slips through the cracks and he misses the stop.
"It's never personal," he said. "I'm not perfect and neither is the world. That's why it's so important - and I hope everyone will consider this - it's very important for everyone who can afford it to go out right now and buy a 'Secret Santa' gift for someone whose house might be hard for me to see."
Better safe than sorry, Santa said: "Together we can make sure no child has to wake up disappointed on Christmas morning. If all of us contribute, prosperity is no effort at all."
Santa told us he knows the modern world is polarized, but that he takes an old-fashioned view of things on his Christmas Eve journey around the globe.
"My mission is for humanity," he said. "I never stop or not stop at a house because of the color of anybody's skin. I've been colorblind all my life. I don't stop or not stop at a house based on peoples' gender or politics or religion. I know it's not the modern way to think, but I just don't care about how you identify in this world. That's your free choice. The only identity I care about is your humanness. When I see a sleeping child in her bed, I see the innocence we still have in the present and the promise and hope we know there is for tomorrow."
We had a couple of final questions.
"Santa," we asked, "just how does a person stay off the naughty list?"
"That's easy," he said with a wink and a twist of his head. "Don't do anything naughty! Ho! Ho! Ho!"
He laughed for five minutes and we thought the walls would fall down.
"Sometimes I crack myself up," he said.
But he had a serious answer.
"Christmas Day is full of love and cheer and warm feelings," he said. "Just make sure, when you wake up, you make every day Christmas Day in your heart. Count your blessings, and if you've got a few extra, give them to someone who doesn't have many. Then everything will be just fine."
The last question we wanted to ask - we always wanted to know if Santa was a globalist, given his globetrotting ways - suddenly didn't seem to be the right thing to ask, so we wrapped things up and thanked Santa for taking the time, especially during such a busy season.
"No problem, but I am in a slow hurry," he said, and got up to leave, snagging a few more cookies from the plate.
Everybody at the newspaper was so excited, and they all gathered around to see Santa off. Santa hugged them all, and then he scurried away. After all, it was the night before Christmas and it was getting dark.
In a moment, he was up and away. We could hear a slight tinkling and the outline of the sleigh and the reindeer in the moonlight, the entire spectacle dressed, we swear, in sparkling stardust. It was a sight to behold, these sweet visions in our heads.
Soon he was gone. But we heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight:
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"
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