A Christmas reality check

     It was December 22, 1990, 11:30 PM. My mother had woke me from a dead sleep with a frantic cadence in her voice. 

     "Get up, I need you and your brother in the living room now!" 

      I slipped out of bed and on barefeet made my way down the long hall to the livingroom. I was walking past the first flight of stairs as dad came up them bundled tight in his most winter worthy clothes. The snow outside had compiled to a depth of over three feet in just one night. As I walked into the living room I saw that mom was crying.  She held my little brother in her arms.  He was a chunky child always so full of life but at the moment he was vibrating with a hacking cough and red as a christmas stocking. 

     "We need to take your little brother to the hospital in Bremerton. He is weezing and burning with fever."

    Three hours later the call came.

      "Hello... yes I will tell her, are you coming home tonight? Are you serious! Ok mum it's going to be ok." My older brother had said as he hung up the phone.

     "The baby has been admitted he needs help breathing and they've hooked him up to machines. Mom is staying at the hospital with him dad will be back and forth between here and there."

     "What is wrong with him?" I wanted to know.

     "He has croupe, I'm not sure what that is. The baby is going to be hospitalized for at  a couple days. This is serious, if they can't get his lungs clear he could die."

2 days later

     "Sissy, mom called they are coming home tonight, they are discharging the baby. He is going to be home for Christmas." My brother said.

     "I want to let you kids know that this year Christmas might not have presents, we were in the hospital and had no time to shop." My mother told us later.

     "It's ok mom Santa will still come. I am sure that he will understand why there are no family to family gifts this year."

     I still believed in the miracle of Santa Clause then. My mother  locked eyes with my father. My dad walked to the coat closet and retrieved his winter coat, hat, and gloves.

     "I'll be back." He had said before going out into the snowy evening.

     I turned in early that night but woke again around 10:30pm to go to the restroom. As I was leaving the restroom the sound of my parents talking in hushed tones lured me down the hall.  They were sitting on the floor in front of the christmas tree and unwrapped presents littered the floor.

     "Who's this one from?" my father asked mom about a gift he had just wrapped.

     From Santa honey, all of her's are from Santa. Did you know she still believed?" My mom had asked.

     "No, I  assummed she was past that age." He had admitted.      I went to bed with a smile on my face after my session of eves dropping, because even in the face of life and death my parents relised a child's innocence was still intact and had stayed up half the night to ensure that it was preserved. That meant more to the adolecent I had become that night than Santa had meant to the child I was the night before.