Part 2: My very first Father Christmas
I had so much fun having my sister here that when she left I was a bit worried that it would make it harder to spend Christmas away from home for the first time. I was happy at least that I wasn’t going to spend it alone, which was a very good thing, because if I had, my fallback plan of staying home, eating my advent calendar chocolate and watching The Christmas Story on DVD for 24 hours running would have gone bust because my DVD doesn’t work. Happily, it didn’t resort to that; in lieu of my own family, I tagged along with Kevin’s, which in turn led me to another altogether.
On Christmas Eve Kevin and I met his parents at Elephant and Castle where they picked us up and we drove to south London to a Christmas party. Kevin’s parents’ friends were having the party, and it was mostly their own family who were there, along with a few family friends like Kevin and his folks. I was more than a little bit nervous to go into that situation. It was only the second time ever I had met Kevin’s parents, and now I was being thrown into a house full of people I’d never met on the most special night of the year to me—I would have felt like a party-crasher on the best of nights, but on Christmas Eve I felt like I was going to be a pariah of the grandest variety. I was, therefore, greatly relieved when the host opened the door and a soft wave of alcohol fumes greeted me along with a warm welcome and an invitation to help myself to a drink. Thankfully, there were lots of people there, several who were way ahead of us on drinks, so even when Kevin wasn’t around there were more than a few people who were easy to chat with.
The evening turned out to be really fun. The food was great, the house was beautiful, and everyone was extremely friendly and welcoming. The best part though, without a doubt, was the arrival of Father Christmas. I was standing in the living room talking with Kevin when there was a banging on the French doors leading outside to the back garden. It was dark out, so I couldn’t really see who or what it was, but then some other adults in the room shouted out, “It’s Father Christmas!” Whoever it was banged hard again before entering through a door to an adjoining room. The whole thing was a bit creepy to me, and had I been a small child I most likely would have been terrified and determined to misbehave all year round just to prevent Father Christmas from coming back next year. When he came into the living room I saw that it was the same man who had let us into the house earlier, but now he was dressed up as Santa, albeit a much thinner version with a suspicious-looking beard and a pair of Blues Brothers shades. I wasn’t surprised when one wary little girl clung firmly to her seat while the other kids jumped up to get a good spot closer up. Father Christmas proceeded to hand out presents to all the children, and even some of the older ones in the family who’d obviously been involved in this tradition since they were small. It was one of the cutest things I’d ever seen; one little girl sat on Santa’s knee and sang a Christmas carol, another boy pointed out all of his costume faults without once doubting that he was the real thing, and the other older kids were enthusiastic for the sake of the younger ones.
Once all the presents had been handed out, we were given little pieces of paper with Silent Night printed on it and everyone in the house joined in for the song. I expected a half-hearted, hurried rendition so that everyone could get past the embarrassment and back to their drinks, but to my surprise everyone seemed to truly enjoy it. I looked around the room at the thirty-or-so people singing together and tried to imagine the response I would get if I suggested a family sing-along next year…my family were the people who took the Milli Vanilli approach to singing hymns in church, so something tells me it just wouldn’t fly. I think we’ll stick to terrorizing each other with our “Christmas Eve Gift” tradition and leave the singing to any of the various animatronic Christmas creatures that my mom has installed for the season (and if they’re fibre optic, all the better).
It definitely was unlike any Christmas Eve I’d ever had before, but I really enjoyed that fact. It had been a long time since I’d had the opportunity to see Christmas through the eyes of a small child, and it was special to think back to what it was like when I wrote my letters to Santa and put them in the fireplace to be swept up the chimney on a magical wind direct to the North Pole a la Santa Claus: The Movie. It must have been really special for my parents, or any parent for that matter, to see their children so genuinely excited and amazed with such whole-hearted belief in someone they had never seen, but had every faith existed. Yep, until the truth comes out and the bitter tears start flowing, it’s a beautiful thing.
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