The day was cold and the wind capricious as it whipped around the five children leaving the schoolyard and setting out northward, then west toward the river a block later, leaving their schoolmates to find their different paths.
Three of the five were boys, six years old and from Miss Grady’s Grade One class. The fourth boy was two or three years older, the brother of one of the Grade Ones. He joined them with some reluctance, expressed by whoops and yells between his departing classmates and himself. Carolanne Wexler, the oldest at eleven, almost ready for Junior High and the only girl, started to shiver as they neared the river. This older boy, Ralph, bounded from side to side with a knowing bragadaccio while the three youngsters gazed uneasily. He commanded the sidewalk and increasingly the conversation. Her shiver owed more to Ralph than the wind as she watched one of the three youngest, her brother Thomas. Ralph went on and on in his sing-songy voice, telling of an outing with his cronies where they had to pretend, due to the presence of a parent, to still believe in Santa Claus. The younger three voiced a boisterous astonishment that this duplicity was necessary. Ralph ended with, “Well, it’s worth it if you let them know what you want.”
She set as fast a pace as she could while the younger three danced around Ralph but took some solace from seeing Thomas was not, she thought, as enthusiastic or admiring as the others. At the others peeled off, leaving Thomas and Carolanne to go a further block. For half the distance Carolanne concentrated ferociously on the ground before her, finally pausing mid-stride and lifting her chin. Looking straight at Thomas, she said,
“Well, even for a little show-off that was a nasty way to get attention. And in front of his own little brother!”
Thomas gaped at her, then shrugged.
“Well,” he looked at the ground as one foot traced circles on the sidewalk, “I guess everyone knows it’s your parents who fill the stockings.” Gathering confidence in the pronouncement he expanded on his knowledge. “If there were any Santa, they’d have stockings too.”
She struggled with this the rest of the way home, thankful that it was Friday and there would only be two days of school the following week. Deciding how to deal with this threatened to take the whole weekend.
After changing from their school clothes Thomas went down to the basement declaring his intention to check for a clear space to make a sled. He was, Carolanne and their mother observed, increasingly taken with this plan as the possibility of snow and Christmas grew closer.
The next day their visit to the mall around the corner introduced their younger brother, Peter, aged three, to Santa Claus. And yes, Carolanne took Peter’s hand and Thomas went ahead to show him the satisfying action of sitting on a strange knee and telling the man in red what you wanted. Peter was not reticent in this regard. Anyone in hearing distance knew his immediate, long-term and Plan B wants.
As they climbed in the car to drive off however, Thomas made a point of announcing off-handedly that if he and his father were to build a sled before snowfall the stocking delivery would have to include both tools and basic materials. He laughed at only slightly higher a pitch than normal, announcing that he hoped Santa would choose sled components that would fit on the delivery sleigh. His father merely commented that an assembled sled would probably take up less room, while Carolanne and her mother kept their faces stiff during the whole of this exchange. When they reached home and their mother announced lunch would be ready in fifteen minutes, Thomas turned to his father.
“Do we have time to look at the basement and decide where there would be room to put a sled together? Just in case?”
“Well,” his father paused at a fixed glare from their mother. “It’s good to hear you thinking ahead. Right now I have to do a little of that.” He nodded to their mother. “That Bartley contract I’ve been working on needs a couple of extra clauses and I may have to go in to the office after lunch to get that roughed out.”
Carolanne collected cutlery and started setting the table as their mother turned to the stove.
When seated, Carolanne took one sip of milk before speaking. “What are extra clauses and why do they have to go in to what you’re doing?”
“A good question,” their father sighed. “It’s like when you and someone else agree on something, say like you and Thomas taking turns to set the table and you draw up a schedule. But when you think about it, you realize there may be a time we either go out to lunch or out to a picnic and the table doesn’t need setting. The clause will say how the schedule is adjusted because you still agree on taking turns and how that will still happen. Do you see?” He looked at Thomas and Carolanne in turn.
“Yeees,” Thomas tossed the thought around along with a bite of cheese sandwich. “But you said a contract was made for court, like having to tell only the truth in court, so if you said what you meant in the first place why would it need a clause?”
Their father laughed. “As a lawyer I can only say it’s judges who think like that who keep the whole thing going.”
After lunch Thomas and Carolanne did the dishes while their mother put Peter up for his nap and their father left for the office.
As he wiped the last dish and Carolanne reached to put it in the cupboard Thomas looked at her and said, “I won’t tell him.”
“Tell who what?”
“I don’t have to show off. I won’t tell Peter there’s no Santa Claus.”
“I know you’re not.”
Just then their mother came in. “Thank you both. Peter could hardly keep his eyes open, but he kept trying because he knows Santa comes when he’s asleep. I’m afraid we’re in for some disappointing nights.”
Thomas pointed to the calendar on the basement door with the month of December blocked off below a pair of deer in a forest. “Maybe you could show him how to cross off the days.”
Mother and Carolanne exchanged a look. “What a good idea. Maybe if I hold him up right before bedtime you can show him how.”
Thomas went to his room to plot snow runs with an inspired arrangement of towels and pillows draped over boxes allowing a virtual unending circular run with careful manoeuvring of the empty match box which served as his model sled.
Carolanne watched in wonder before entering her room and carefully, quietly closing her door. She then arranged the blanket at the end of her bed in a half-circle. Taking the black china Scottie dog bank from her dresser she unscrewed the bottom and coin by coin, bill by bill, emptied the contents. Counting each pile she noted on an envelope the number and final total before placing the whole in the envelope. This she placed in the bottom of her ‘Sunday’ purse and Scottie back on the dresser.
Leaving her room she paused in Thomas’s doorway.
“What space were you planning to use in the basement? Do we have to move any of the summer things to make room?”
“I don’t think so. It’s sort of neat already. Do you want to see?”
“Yes, okay. We can check on what else can be moved.”
They went down and Thomas outlined to Carolanne the minor adjustments that could be made to clear the workbench, presently used as a stand for the laundry baskets. While Thomas walked back and forth, demonstrating the actions needed to produce a sled, Carolanne found a new spot for the laundry basket on the other side of the washing machine. When Thomas was turned away she fished two socks from the basket and stuffed them down the back of her jeans before he once again faced her.
“You have it all worked out, I think. You could probably build anything.”
“Sure, Dad could build anything he wanted to,” Thomas was only minimally taken aback. Girls said weird things sometimes.
The next day after church and Sunday School Carolanne asked her mother if she could walk home with one of her friends rather than riding with the rest of the family. Permission granted, she joined Sally from two doors down and they set out on a route that passed the drug store. Sally watched as Carolanne traced a methodical path past magazines and toiletries and in mere minutes was standing at the checkout, mission accomplished.
As they continued along the street Sally glanced and did a double-take as Carolanne stopped at the corner and tucked the contents of her foray under her sweater and consigned the shopping bag to the trash can.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“If you had a younger brother you wouldn’t ask.”
“Well, no, but I have an older sister.”
“But not a brother. And definitely not one named Ralph. Or something like that. So yes, I think it’s a good idea.”
They parted at Sally’s house, with plans to meet on Christmas morning after breakfast, now only four days away.
The following day after school, Carolanne gritted her teeth when it came time for their little group to set out for home together. But Ralph joined them and with one whoop commandeered the airwaves with the proceedings of the day in his classroom. There had been, apparently, no work done. The whole day consisted of a review of work done in that term and there had been lots of interruptions and ad hoc comments having nothing to do with the work at hand. There had even been a reference to his teacher as a ‘doofus’.
When Carolanne spontaneously burst forth with, “And how do you get smart enough to know a doofus when you see one?” Ralph was silent for all of two seconds, then started an outline of what he expected to do on the soccer field the next day. She was pleased to note the three younger ones did not rise to his defence. So she and Thomas left for the final lap with no further aggravation.
On their way home after that last day of school before the holidays, Ralph was somewhat subdued and the younger three chatted among themselves. When they approached some state of excitement over the coming events and Ralph looked ready to speak, Carolanne stepped to cut him off from the others. Looking him in the eye she asked, “And what will you be doing for the holidays?” Giving her a blank stare he started a rundown on what would happen if snow did or did not show up. As the others peeled off, Thomas sank into a deeper and deeper silence, barely stopping to greet their mother before going up to his room.
Their father worked late that night, so even the dinner table was relatively silent. The bright spot of the evening was Peter marking the day unaided, after help from Thomas on the previous nights. He chortled with glee as they looked at the two blank squares yet to be filled in the calendar. Even Thomas came out of his silence at Peter’s antics. To calm him down his mother suggested all four of them share his story time, so they took turns reading from Peter’s choices.
The following day their father came home early to their mother’s relief, and all five set out to collect their Christmas tree. It would be a small one this year, to sit in a corner of the living room where it could be fenced off so Peter couldn’t dive into it and pull it down on top of himself.
Dinner over and the tree set up, the evening was spent unpacking ornaments and separating them for destination to higher branches to father and lower to Carolanne and Thomas, while mother and Peter re-arranged any Peter considered awry.
Then it was time for Peter’s bath with father while mother prepared cocoa for the story time. This was enticement for Peter. Tonight the sight of the one remaining blank on the calendar made turning away a near impossibility, but finally they gathered around the tree to see the lights come on.
The following day was filled with ‘mother’ errands to prepare for dinner the next day. Their grandparents would be there, and neighbours would drop in to wish them well. Carolanne and Thomas both helped at times in the kitchen, stirring this and licking that and washing dishes. Carolanne looked at Thomas from time to time, but if he was wondering when their parents had time to fill stockings he didn’t show it. She herself helped her mother by cleaning her room unaided, vacuum and everything. She offered to help Thomas as well. After some thought she was allowed to vacuum after he had disassembled the snow trail and placed it for safety on his bed.
At last it was ‘the’ calendar moment. Peter was lifted up and ready to yelp the house down at the sight of the last square, but Thomas gazed sternly, holding the crayon inches from his fingers until silence reigned. With a truly amazing sense of occasion, Peter took his cue and slowly, deliberately, the last red V appeared in the box labelled ‘24’.
This night they hung their stockings by the fireplace, and Peter did not get to choose the story. Father took him on his knee and ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’ rolled with quiet drama, and with as much solemnity as possible Peter was taken upstairs.
If Thomas was awake deliberately or otherwise later in the night, Carolanne was unable to discover it. So the next morning as he and Peter were first to the fireplace she was pleased to hear what she hoped was a yelp of surprise and joy. Very soon all five were gathered round and Peter was handed his large red woolen sock with a P, Carolanne her striped sock with a C, and Thomas his polka dot sock with a T. This left two dark green socks. They stared in silence for all of five seconds before Thomas made an announcement.
“Probably Santa thinks parents know who they are without the letters.” He peered inside, then handed one to their mother and the other to their father, looking gravely at Carolanne as he passed her going back to his place on the floor. When the contents had been emptied they were all happy with their usual complement of nuts and oranges. Thomas seemed pleased with a couple of real tools in his, Peter delighted with the box that held his puzzle set, mother carefully not astonished at the magazine and scented soap in hers, and father tongue-in-cheek as he gazed at a woodworking magazine with instructions on building a sled. And Carolanne was certainly happy with her new bookbag.
They sat down to breakfast before opening other presents so it was some little while before Carolanne saw Thomas open the one large present from their parents, a carefully wrapped sled. As father later explained to Thomas, they thought Santa would realize father wasn’t up to snuff in the sled-building department, but, as he waved the woodworking magazine, he thought Thomas and he between them could manage a storage shelf or two.
Later still, when Carolanne was ready for sleep that night, she gazed at her empty china Scottie dog bank with satisfaction and lifted it to pat its head. Surprised, there was a clunk. When she opened the bottom out fell assorted change, about a tenth of what was there before. Leaping out of bed she took the few steps to Thomas door to see him packing away his indoor “snow run”. He looked up and gave her a grin, falling snow in the window behind him..
