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Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories - Santa Claus

Santa was a big piece to our Christmast celebrations. In fact, his arrival was the beginning of our Christmas season. Every Thanksgiving day we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, sitting in the living room eating Pillsbury cinnamon rolls. Santa is the last float in the parade and at our house, once we saw him on television the Christmast season began!
Santa Claus in the 2008 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Image by tweber1 as found on Wikimedia Commons.
I have always had a love/fear relationship with Santa. I love the idea of Santa and I have always believed in him. But I don't really need to see him in person. Perhaps he is too similar to the clowns that I am deathly afraid of. Perhaps it stems from my childhood shyness. Either way, there are no childhood photographs (that I can find) of me with Santa Claus. I don't even remember visits to Santa Claus when I was little. If there were photos I imagine they were similar to some of my husband's:
1978
There is one photograph of me with Santa...Santa dad!
Me with Santa Dad in 1993 or 1994
I do remember writing letters to Santa Claus. I believe that my Mom or Dad posted them for me. I still write letters to Santa Claus! How else would Santa know what I want?
Ruth Butler Burnett, Lois Burnett Kuhn and Warren Kuhn reading a letter from Santa in 1951.

2 comments:

Wendy said...

I have a Santa photo of my daughter that looks very much like your husband's picture. I laugh whenever I see it, but then I'm probably a terrible mother.

Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoot said...

I always hid from Santa too. "Do you want to go and tell Santa what you want for Christmas" my parents would ask and I always said no. Someone who knows if you were naughty or nice was too much for me. We also had the St. Nicholas tradition in my Germanic roots family. On the evening of Dec. 5 my dad would ring sleigh bells (the real thing) outside the door and leave a bag of angel food candy. I ran the other way until I was absolutely sure St. Nick was gone. I completely understand your fears!