{"id":103945,"date":"2024-12-18T15:27:10","date_gmt":"2024-12-18T08:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writehorizon.com\/?p=103945"},"modified":"2024-12-18T15:52:34","modified_gmt":"2024-12-18T08:52:34","slug":"on-santas-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writehorizon.com\/on-santas-team\/","title":{"rendered":"On Santa’s Team"},"content":{"rendered":"

My grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her world-famous cinnamon buns.\n

Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me.\n

\u201cNo Santa Claus!\u201d she snorted. \u201cRidiculous! Don\u2019t believe it. That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad. Now, put on your coat, and let\u2019s go.\u201d\n

\u201cGo? Go where, Grandma?\u201d I asked. I hadn\u2019t even finished my second cinnamon bun.\n

\u201cWhere\u201d turned out to be Kerby\u2019s General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days.\n

\u201cTake this money,\u201d she said, \u201cand buy something for someone who needs it. I\u2019ll wait for you in the car.\u201d Then she turned and walked out of Kerby\u2019s.\n

I was only eight years old. I\u2019d often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for. I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church.\n

I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobbie Decker. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock\u2019s grade-two class. Bobbie Decker didn\u2019t have a coat. I knew that because he never went out for recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough; but all we kids knew that Bobbie Decker didn\u2019t have a cough, and he didn\u2019t have a coat.\n

I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobbie Decker a coat. I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that. I didn\u2019t see a price tag, but ten dollars ought to buy anything. I put the coat and my ten-dollar bill on the counter and pushed them toward the lady behind it.\n

She looked at the coat, the money, and me. \u201cIs this a Christmas present for someone?\u201d she asked kindly. \u201cYes,\u201d I replied shyly. \u201cIt\u2019s \u2026 for Bobbie. He\u2019s in my class, and he doesn\u2019t have a coat.\u201d The nice lady smiled at me. I didn\u2019t get any change, but she put the coat in a bag and wished me a Merry Christmas.\n

That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and ribbons, and write, \u201cTo Bobbie, From Santa Claus\u201d on it \u2026 Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy.
\nThen she drove me over to Bobbie Decker\u2019s house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially one of Santa\u2019s helpers. Grandma parked down the street from Bobbie\u2019s house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk.\n

Suddenly, Grandma gave me a nudge. \u201cAll right, Santa Claus,\u201d she whispered, \u201cget going.\u201d\n

I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his doorbell twice and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma. Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobbie. He looked down, looked around, picked up his present, took it inside and closed the door.\n

Forty years haven\u2019t dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, beside my grandma, in Bobbie Decker\u2019s bushes. That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were: Ridiculous!\n

Santa was alive and well \u2026 AND WE WERE ON HIS TEAM!\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My grandma taught me everything about Christmas. I was just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb: \u201cThere is no Santa Claus,\u201d jeered my sister. \u201cEven dummies know that!\u201d My grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":103948,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[642],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-103945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-moral-story"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/writehorizon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/On-Santas-Team.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehorizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehorizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehorizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehorizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehorizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/writehorizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103949,"href":"https:\/\/writehorizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103945\/revisions\/103949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehorizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writehorizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehorizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writehorizon.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}