by
Gary Cottle
Hattie Galler was stretched out on her daughter Ashley’s bed. It was a cold December night, and it was pushing 9:30. This was well past little seven-year-old Ashley’s bedtime, but Hattie wanted to indulge the girl by reading ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas once again. Hattie had read it to Ashley at least ten times since Halloween.
Hattie read the story with enthusiasm and zeal. She always read it with enthusiasm and zeal. And every time Ashley asked to hear the story again, Hattie would reward her daughter by throwing her arms around her and proclaiming, “You’re such a good girl. You’re growing up to be just like Mommy.”
For a moment, Hattie was lost in reverie once she finished ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, but then Ashley asked, “Mommy, will you leave cookies and milk out for Santa this year?”
Hattie bent over and kissed her young daughter on the head and said, “Of course, sweetheart. I always do.”
“Does everybody leave cookies and milk out for Santa?”
A self-satisfied smirk appeared on Hattie’s face, and she said, “The smart ones do.”
“Why?” Ashley asked innocently.
Hattie paused, tilted her head and said quietly, “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this right before you go to sleep, but since you’re Mommy’s big girl now, I guess you should know; Santa is entitled to take whatever he wants in exchange for the presents he brings us, so it’s a good idea to satisfy his hunger with cookies and milk.”
“Really?” Ashley asked in wonderment.
“He burns a lot of calories delivering all of those presents. He needs to keep up his strength. And he wants to know that his efforts are appreciated.”
“He’s fat because he eats all those cookies?”
Hattie placed an index finger on her daughter’s lips and whispered, “Shh, baby girl. Mustn’t ever speak ill of Santa. He’s always listening.” She gave her daughter a stern look to make sure the girl knew she was serious. “Now you get some sleep. Good girls don’t stay up to all hours, and you know Santa is keeping score.”
After giving Ashley another kiss on her head, Hattie got up and crossed the room with the intention of turning out the light and going downstairs, but just as she was about to open the door, she turned and added, “Your grandmother told me when I was about your age that her grandmother once forgot to leave out cookies and milk, and Santa punished her by going into the kitchen and eating everything in the house. There wasn’t anything left for Christmas dinner.”
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Hattie spent the next two hours baking. By that time, she needed a break, so she went out into the living room. There she found her husband, Howard, watching the local news. Much to Hattie’s chagrin, they were running yet another piece about last year’s Christmas tragedy. Three children went missing on Christmas Eve, and many had blamed the Spirit of Santa Ministries. Many were bold enough to come right out and challenge the wisdom of giving the Ministries’ Santas access to one’s house in the dead of night. Hattie remembered one women in particular who actually said, “It’s crazy to let some strange fat man in your house just because it’s Christmas and the guy wears a red suit and works for SSM.”
Hattie felt bad about what happened, but she was sure the Spirit of Santa Ministries had nothing to do with it. She had hoped that all the silliness would have been forgotten by now, but then the carcass of one of the children, a five-year-old boy named Timmy, was discovered behind the local Super Wal-Mart five weeks earlier. Forensic examiners concluded that the boy’s flesh had been eaten by an animal with very sharp teeth.
Howard was slumped in his recliner half asleep as their local TV station sensationalized the story right in front of him, and Hattie just wasn’t going to sit still for that.
“How could you watch that filth?” she asked angrily.
She then marched to the TV and started flipping through the channels until she found a station that was running Miracle on 34th Street.
“Hey, the sports was up next,” Howard said. He tried to sound offended and put upon, but he was too wimpy to pull it off.
“Don’t give me that,” Hattie said as if she had just caught Ashley telling a fib. “I know you’ve been fascinated by that awful story since last year.”
Howard sighed and stated feebly, “Well, I was thinking that maybe we should just buy Ashley’s Christmas presents ourselves this year and lock the doors and windows on Christmas Eve.”
“Lock the doors and windows? You know that Santa comes down the chimney,” Hattie said smugly.
Howard rolled his eyes and said, “Yeah, sure he does, Hattie.”
“Besides, I already made out a list and took it down to the SSM office with our donation.”
“Hattie! You did that without consulting me first?”
“Why should I consult you? It’s what we’ve done ever since Ashley was born. It’s how my family has done it for generations.”
“But we should have talked it over this time. You know what happened last year. And just a few weeks ago they found that boy…”
“I believe,” Hattie almost shouted. Then she collected herself and more calmly stated, “I believe that a zealous Free Giver snatched those children in order to discredit the Spirit of Santa Ministries.”
Howard knew it was useless to argue, so he went to bed without saying another word.
__________________________
“I wanted you to have this,” thirteen-year-old Seth Jones said to Molly Kaplan, one of his fellow eighth-graders.
He handed her a gift wrapped flat, rectangular box about eight inches long and less than an inch wide. Inside was the Mickey Mouse watch he got at Disneyland last year. The watch meant a lot to Seth because his parents died in a car accident just a few weeks after they had visited Disneyland. That had been their last family vacation together, and the watch was his only physical reminder of the event, but he wanted Molly to have it. Her long blond hair was so pretty. She looked just like a Disney princess. And she was one of the few kids in his class who was nice to him despite the fact that he was from the Bay Area, spiked his dark hair and painted his fingernails black.
Surprisingly, Molly seemed reluctant to take the gift. The two kids were sitting on the sofa in the Kaplan’s family room, and she looked back and forth as if she thought one of her parents may catch her letting Seth kiss her.
“Go on, Molly. Please take it. It would mean so much to me if you wore this to school tomorrow.”
“What is it?” the girl asked as she finally relented and took the gift. A guilty smile appeared on her face.
“Open it and find out.”
Molly was about to do just that when her father came into the room.
“What in the hell is that?” Mr. Kaplan said in a booming voice.
“It’s a Christmas present, sir,” Seth said politely.
“I’m sure you know we don’t give presents around here.”
“But I’m not from around here, sir, and my parents raised me to believe that giving was a good thing.”
Mr. Kaplan’s expression turned to disgust. “I’m sorry, young man, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave this instant. I don’t allow Free Givers in my house.”
Seth got to his feet, but before making a move toward the door, he found the nerve to say to Molly, “I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”
Mr. Kaplan grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, dragged him to the foyer, tossed him out into the snow. He then went back inside.
Seth had landed face first into the slushy mess, and he had just gotten to his feet and started to wipe the moisture from his rosy cheeks when Mr. Kaplan came back out onto the porch. For a moment, Seth thought the man had come back to beat him, but instead Mr. Kaplan threw his gift into the puddle at his feet.
“If you want someone around here to have something, then you do what we all do. You go down to SSM and request that Santa deliver the gift. And if you’re smart, you’ll make a donation while you’re down there. That’s how we do it in this town, boy. Now, don’t you forget it.”
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Lionel Graham was reluctant to bring his wife, Roberta, and his grandson, Seth, to the Spirit of Santa Town Hall Meeting, but they insisted on coming. Roberta wanted to publicly support Lionel, and Seth, who hadn’t been living in the small hamlet for long, seemed anxious to learn more about the customs and mores of the community.
Truth is, Lionel would have preferred to skip the meeting himself, but since he was on the board of the Spirit of Santa Family Values Coalition, he, more or less, had to attend. The Spirit of Santa Ministries, and its role in the community’s Christmas celebrations, had become unexpectedly controversial, and everyone was picking sides and digging in their heels. Since Lionel was the token moderate on the board, the one who was supposed to find common ground between the True Believers and the Free Givers, his job had become a thankless nightmare. When people start shooting at one another, the one place you don’t want to be is in the middle. And just as Lionel had predicted, the meeting was a fiasco.
The evening began with an invocation by Tammy the elf who was a little person just like all the elves, but despite Tammy’s small stature, she was a force to be reckoned with. Tammy was the SSM district supervisor for the region. She was answerable to only one person--the CEO of SSM. Tammy thanked everyone in the local elementary school auditorium for attending the meeting, assured everyone that SSM understood their concerns, and went on to promise that SSM was doing everything it could to make sure their Santas were the best trained and most dedicated Santas on the planet.
“Our Santas are not like mall Santas. Delivering presents isn’t just a job to our Santas. The fine men who wear the suit for SSM feel they have been called to play Santa. They have dedicated their lives to this role. You can trust our Santas, and you can trust SSM.”
Tammy ended her remarks with a “Dear Santa” supplication. She then looked to the heavens and said, “We love you, Santa.” Nearly everyone in the auditorium said it along with her.
When Tammy finished, the Sheriff, who had the unfortunate name of Norman Bates, told the crowd that if they kept things civil then he didn’t expect any trouble, but he warned everyone that he would have no problem locking up anyone who got out of hand, even if they were True Believers like himself.
A couple of Free Givers felt emboldened enough by current events to stand up and claim that maybe it was time people forgot what they termed “old superstitions” and started to look for the spirit of giving within themselves. But the Free Givers were obviously in the minority and they were soon shouted down. They looked to Sheriff Bates to keep things fair and balanced, but every time a Free Giver spoke, the Sheriff would merely shake his head at what he thought was their stupidity as many True Believers grumbled and hissed.
Several True Believers got to their feet and proclaimed they believed that a Free Giver from some far-flung place like California or New York snuck into town last Christmas and snatched a few kids in order to make the Spirit of Santa Ministries look bad.
“Those people aim to take away our liberty and destroy our way of life,” Will Montague said so vehemently that spittle flew out of his mouth.
Mr. Kaplan added as he stared at Seth Jones, “There are outsiders who live right here in town who refuse to respect our values, much less adopt them.”
Hattie Galler was the last to speak her mind. Much to the discomfort of her husband, Howard, she rose to her feet, and with great solemnity, she said, “I believe in Santa. And I believe in the Spirit of Santa Ministries. I believe the actions of the men who play Santa for SSM are being directed by the actual Spirit of Santa. I am a humble woman, but I am proud of my beliefs. I think all good and decent people believe in Santa. I would like to live my life without my most cherished beliefs challenged by those who want to destroy our traditions, but it seems to me that every year my freedom to believe in Santa without question is being eroded more and more. The other day I asked my daughter about what she had learned in school, and she told me one of her classmates stood up and said that his daddy told him Santa was a myth, and the teacher didn’t even reprimand him. When I go out, I hear my neighbors say disrespectful things about Santa. And when I’m in the checkout line at the Piggly Wiggly, I see tabloids with vulgar lies about SSM Santas getting caught gambling and hiring prostitutes. They even accuse them of using True Believer donations to SSM to do these things. But I want all of you Free Givers to know that you have not shaken my faith in Santa. You have only strengthened my resolve. I have raised my daughter to believe in Santa, and I’m going to continue to raise her to believe in Santa. She knows she won’t be welcome in my house if she doesn’t. I’m willing to fight for my right to believe in Santa. I’m willing to die for Santa.”
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On the drive home, Seth, who was sitting in the back seat, broke the silence by asking in a voice tinged with sarcasm, “So everybody in this berg believes in Santa?”
His grandmother, Roberta, smiled back at him and said, “Most people do, dear.”
Lionel added, “They don’t believe that he’s a flesh and blood man. Most think he used to be, and many think he’ll return one day, but until that day comes, we have the SSM to keep the spirit of giving alive.”
“But why do you need SSM to do that? Why can’t people just give things to each other when they feel like it?”
Lionel tried to find the words that would make it clear to the boy, but he’d learned that it was useless to try to convince a Free Giver. “Seth, we just do things our own way here. You need to get used to that.”
“I can see why my mother got out of this town right out of high school,” the boy said sullenly.
“And you see what that lead to?” Roberta said rather sternly.
Seth, who was now close to tears, said, “You don’t really think Mom and Dad died because they didn’t believe…”
“Seth,” Lionel said in a calming voice, “we know how hard it was for you to lose your parents, and we know how hard it’s been for you to make the adjustment to living here with us, but you have to accept facts; you do live here. Your grandmother and I respect your beliefs, just as we respected your mothers, but you’re going to have to get along with people.” After a pause, he asked, “Would you like to tell us what happened over at the Kaplans' earlier?”
Seth looked down at his feet and said in a whisper, “No.”
“I think you should stay home from school tomorrow. It’s the last day before Christmas break anyway. Maybe things will have quieted down by the time school resumes in the new year.”
“I’m not ashamed, and I’m not going to hide,” Seth almost squealed.
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“I think that we need to put Ian Fischer on a paid leave of absence this Christmas,” Tammy said. She tried her best to sound authoritative, but talking to the boss always made her a little nervous.
One of the few people in the world who intimidated her was Ed Baker, the owner and CEO of the Spirit of Santa Ministries. And to make matters worse, Mr. Baker insisted on seeing her at his private residence--an opulent palace decorated in red and green. He rarely made an appearance down at the corporate headquarters. The furnishings in Mr. Baker’s private study--if you will pardon the pun--dwarfed her. Of course most furniture was made for people larger than Tammy, but Mr. Baker’s study was full of pieces that seemed blown up to fit the scale of the huge room.
“Now why would you want to do that, sweetheart? You know Fischer is one of our best Santas,” Mr. Baker said. He always managed to sound condescending.
They were standing on opposite sides of Mr. Baker’s antique wrapping table. It was supposedly used by Mr. Baker’s great, great grandfather, Josiah Baker, back when he founded the Spirit of Santa Ministries. According to the legend, Josiah made the toys himself, wrapped them on the table, and delivered them to the children in his community while dressed in a Santa costume. When the townsfolk discovered what he was doing, they began to donate money so that Josiah could work on his toys fulltime. The table had since been gold plated, and just like everything else in Mr. Baker’s office, it was big. If Tammy was just a couple of inches shorter, she would not have been able to see over the table.
“Mr. Baker, I realize that Fischer has been with us for a long time, but he has been moved from one region to another his whole career, and he has been investigated numerous times. None of it has been made public, and no charges were ever filed, but he’s been under suspicion for years. Last year was his first year in my region, and that was the year those three children went missing.”
Mr. Baker rolled his eyes. “Dear, Tammy, you know militant Free Givers are the ones who snatched those kids. Besides, if we suspended Fischer, that would send the wrong signal. It would look like we didn’t trust our Santas, and if we don’t trust our Santas, then how can we expect our donors to trust them?”
“But the children…”
“You heard what I said, Tammy. Fischer delivers presents this Christmas Eve just as he has done for the last forty years.”
In defeat, Tammy said, “Yes, sir.” And then she turned to leave.
But Mr. Baker stopped her. In a tone that was both personable and foreboding, he said, “Tammy, I was wondering if you would do me a personal favor.”
__________________________
Tammy found herself flat on her back up on the gold plated wrapping table with her elf skirt pulled up above her waist, and she was doing things to herself with a candy cane that would have made a sailor blush…while Mr. Baker pleasured himself.
When he finished, he said, “Don’t you even contemplate telling on me. I’ll ruin you, Tammy. Think about your position. Who else would give a little person such an important job? And who do you think will hire you after I accuse you of pocketing donations?”
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Hattie came into the living room and placed a plate of freshly baked cookies and a glass of milk on a little stool by the fireplace. When she did this, she couldn’t help but hear the television news because Howard had neglected to turn off the set before going to bed. They were running a story about how Seth Jones had been so relentlessly teased, bullied and threatened by his classmates for being a Free Giver that he shot himself using his grandfather’s revolver. As Hattie tidied up the living room, she heard Sheriff Bates say that the boy’s death was a tragedy.
“My men will investigate, and we’ll file charges if necessary, but I think it’s important to remember the boy was an outsider who brought a lot of this on himself by refusing to accept our community standards.”
As Hattie turned off the TV, she said, “You tell ‘em, Norman.”
Hattie then walked to the front door to make sure it was unlocked. She even went so far as to release the latch so that anyone who wanted to gain entrance would only have to push on the door. When that chore was completed, Hattie headed to her bedroom to join her husband. It wouldn’t be right to be awake when Santa visited, so she took a dose of her sleeping medication right after giving Howard a hot toddy laced with the same drug, and now she was feeling the effects. Before getting into bed, Hattie knelt on the floor, clasped her hands in front of her, and prayed, “I believe.”
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After placing presents under the Galler’s tree, Ian Fischer had a look at the cookies Hattie had left for him. Much to his disgust, they were peanut butter. This had been the third time in a row he had found peanut butter cookies after delivering presents, and Ian was allergic to peanuts. In a fit of rage, Ian used the back of his hand to flip the plate into the fireplace. When the plate shattered, he pricked up his ears to determine if he had disturbed anyone’s sleep. He stood there still and quiet for several minutes, and when he was satisfied no one had heard him, he took the glass of milk, spilled it’s contents onto the rug, and then threw the glass into the firebox.
When the breaking of the glass failed to stir anyone in the house, an evil grin spread across Ian’s red, swollen face, revealing tobacco stained teeth. He then headed toward little Ashley Galler’s bedroom.
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