Dear Aunt Myrna
Page 10
"What do you think Aunt Myrna would like for Christmas?" Mama asked me as we were eating supper, after Papa had told us about his day.
"Won't Santa Claus take care of that?" I asked.
Papa clarified Santa Claus' role, and I listened to him, mesmerized. Apparently, according to his account, Papa had had a private meeting with Santa a few years earlier. They had met at a downtown restaurant just before Christmas.
Papa told the story of his meeting with Santa much better than I can write it, and I can't remember everything he said. The thing I most remember, though, was that Santa told him that it was up to people to give one another presents and they were to wrap the presents in Christmas paper and place them under the Christmas tree. Santa's job was not to bring gifts. Santa's job was to sprinkle a little Santa dust on them, and then the gifts became Christmas gifts.
Santa said only a gift given with love could be a Christmas gift. And he told Papa that packages under a tree were just things until Santa sprinkled them. A Christmas present, Papa summed up, was a gift of love and magic.
Papa chuckled as he finished his story and added that there was an old custom of putting out milk and cookies for Santa but Santa told Papa he preferred tequila. Mama frowned at Papa sternly and told him to quit telling me things like that, and he laughed again and said, "She doesn't understand anyway, Laura."
"Well," Mama scolded him, "there's no need to help her understand some things!"
Papa hung his head a little but his eyes were still twinkling when he winked at me.
Mama forgave him his brief lapse in judgment, and there followed a flurry of discussion about what to get Aunt Myrna. Papa thought I might get her a book because she liked to read so much, and Mama suggested I give her something personal, something that was especially from me.
After school the next day Mama took me to a book store and we bought Aunt Myrna a copy of Little House on the Prairie. Inside the cover I wrote,
Christmas 1962
Dear Aunt Myrna,
Papa says you live in a little house on a prairie, and so I thought you might like to read this book. It is one of my favorites.
I hope you have a merry Christmas.
With affection, your niece,
Katie Arlene Morgenstern
PS - Do not forget to set out snacks for Santa. I understand he gets very cross if people forget. Papa says Santa likes tequila more than milk. I don't like milk, either, and I may ask Mama to buy some tequila for me, too. I'm not sure what tequila is. I looked it up in the dictionary but I couldn't find it. Anyhow, if it's good enough for Santa, I expect I will like it, too.
Two days later a package arrived for me from Hendley Nebraska. I ripped off the brown paper, and underneath was brightly colored Christmas wrapping paper. I started to rip it off, but Mama reminded me about what Santa had told Papa. A present wasn't a Christmas gift until it was placed under the tree and sprinkled with Santa dust. I reluctantly placed the gift under the tree, and then sat on the floor staring at it until Mama called me for dinner.
It was our family tradition to open Christmas gifts right after we got home from midnight Mass. For over a week I had shaken, rattled, and squeezed every package under the tree many, many times, but I had no clue what they contained.
Just before we left for Mass Mama put some chocolate chip cookies that she had made that afternoon on the end table by the Christmas tree. She poured a little chocolate milk in a glass with a snowman on it and set it next to the cookies.
"But Papa says?." I started to argue.
"Never mind!" Mama said as she took me by the hand and walked toward the front door. I looked back up at Papa following behind us and he winked at me.
It began snowing during Mass and we drove home very slowly. I can't remember a single house we passed that did not have holiday lights on. The whole world sparkled like the snow globe it had become.
The funny thing about Christmas gifts, when you get a lot of them, is that a week later you're having to struggle to recount each one, and not long after that you can only remember a few of them, and by the time a few years go by you're lucky if you can recollect a single gift you received in any specific year.
I remember only one Christmas gift I received in 1962. It was a rather fancy set of stationary with lavender flowers across the top, and a single purplish flower on the bottom. Matching envelopes, with tiny flowers on the back, were also in the box. The paper was fairly thin, and in the back of the box was a plain piece of paper, the same size as the stationary, with extra bold lines. Mama said if I put that sheet right behind the sheet I was writing on it would keep my writing in fairly neat lines across the page.
There was familiar handwriting on the first sheet of the stationary.
Dear Kate,
Happy today, and merry always!
Love from your
Aunt Myrna
CHAPTER 11