Christmas. It’s not my forte. And by that I mean, I’m not very good at enjoying any aspect in, of, or around it.
I can’t wait for it to be over. The sooner it’s done, the sooner we get through Boxing Day (officially the most boring day of the year) and the next big annual disappointment – New Year’s.
(FYI, welcome to ‘Morose Hour’ With Keira Daley)
It wasn’t always this way. I used to love Christmas. Balmy nights lit only by the soft blue glow of TV Christmas specials (how awesome were those old stop-start animations?) and the coloured bulbs on our plastic tree. All the really good fruits you could only get in summer – stone fruit, cherries, and mangoes! And, of course, Santa.
Santa and I had an understanding. He was magic and he was nothing like what the world presented him as. All of those dudes in red fatsuits in shopping centres were fakes and I knew it. And all the kids who thought these sweaty mall employees were real simply didn’t have a grasp on logic.
The real Santa, well, nobody knew what he looked like. The real Santa didn’t come down the chimney and he probably didn’t even have reindeer. After all, he was magic. He can arrive and leave with a click of his fingers, planting gifts that’d appear on command. He didn’t need freakin’ reindeer (though he probably had some up at the North Pole to keep him company).
I loved Santa and Christmas until that fateful day (at an age where, by all accusations, I should’ve known better) I was told Santa wasn’t real – after some pretty persistent interrogation on my part, of course.
However, deep down, I think I always knew. I just wanted so badly to believe in something magical and fun, that I was in the most potent kind of denial. I refused to believe that it was just my mum taking a bite out of the biscuit I left on the table, writing hello (or leaving a ‘paw print’ for the Easter Bunny – now that’s dedication!), or getting me exactly what I’d asked for.
Because, as I told you, Santa and I had an understanding – I believed in him and his magic, and in return I was rewarded. And sucks to be the little jerk kids who believed otherwise and missed out.
Can you imagine my devastation the day where I found out the Truth (with a capital ‘T’)?!
It was the day I realised that magic really had no place in the world. Oh, and that adults lie (seriously, my poor mum must’ve felt mortified by my tearful rant – sharper than a serpent’s tooth, eh?).
Fast forward to this morning when I was greeted with the following message on my work voicemail:
“My child read in your magazine that [a certain celebrity] enjoys playing Santa at Christmas – from this she discovered that Santa isn’t real! She was devastated…”
This p!$$ed me off for reasons you might not expect, given my background story.
Setting aside the bizarre notion of young kids reading grown-up magazines (seriously, WTF are they reading it for – recipes?), and the fact that this guy has inadvertently taught his child the lesson that you should believe everything you read… has nobody any imagination anymore?
Why couldn’t this guy have told his child that lots of people dress up as Santa, but they’re not the real one – just like how lots of people dress up as Tweety Bird (okay, maybe not lots) but everyone knows the real one is a cartoon (no, wait…).
My point is, why couldn’t this guy have told his kid that the real Santa is magic? That nobody really knows what he looks like, that he can arrive and leave with a click of his fingers, planting gifts that appear on command…
Seriously. You want answers? Go back in time two decades and ask me. I knew everything then – even how to enjoy the holiday season.
