Smart Santa

When I was six years old my family and I moved to a house in New Jersey, the same house that my parents live now. I was super excited for Christmas because we had a REAL FIREPLACE!! Which meant that Santa could come to the house!! The year before my father had to wait up and let him in the front door.

I told my mother that I needed to get a stocking so that Santa could put a present in it. She really didn't take me very seriously but I whined and whined about it and finally she went to her suitcase and pulled out all sort of stupid stockings. I wanted to go out and buy a real red and white stocking like everyone had, but we didn't have much money in those days. My mom pulled out this long green, orange and white striped thigh-high stocking that she had, remember, this was the seventies, and my father fastened it above our mantelpiece.

Of course I was all, "Uhm...That's totally never going to work. The only thing that's going to fit into THAT stocking is a baseball bat...and I DON'T WANT a baseball bat!!"

This was just another one of those American things that my parents get ALL WRONG and now I was resigned to the fact that I was going to get a stupid gift.

So come Christmas morning, I ran down the stairs to find that Santa had TIED THE STOCKING AROUND MY PRESENT. It was a paint-by-numbers set of Wyle E. Coyote. I really loved that present because IT WAS NOT A BASEBALL BAT!! Instead of trying to put something INSIDE the stocking, he thought OUTSIDE THE BOX!!

And I remember thinking, "Wow, that Santa is SO SMART. No matter what silly stuff my parents do to try to RUIN EVERYTHING, he TOTALLY KNOWS how to make it right. Because he's SANTA."