Santa’s Jolly Crowbar

Christmas night, twelve years ago.

I was seven years old and unaware of the dangers to my well-being and to all others that could come through nothing more than a grandparental failure to own a chimney.

The following year, after the trauma and shock had come and gone, we had a chimney installed. It was a state of the art piece of structure wide enough for even the largest of men, in case one of such size should want or need to fall down for one reason or another.

All this was needed because of the Christmas of 2011, and may I say, I will never be able to forget that night.

For Christmas that year, we had gone to our grandparents house. They nor I own a chimney and relied presumably on Santa’s ability to sneak his way into homes in order to deliver presents instead of falling in as if he were in the process of a military operation. I was fine with this because it had been told to me that year that they had put a house key under the mat for Santa, and that when he came, he would use the key to come in and delivers the presents and eat the cookies we had laid out, etc.

I was so excited. That night, my grandma had had me sleeping on the daybed in her study, which sat at the front of the house. What overjoyed my little seven year old self was that the study was so much in the front of the house that the window that showed the outdoors was close enough to the front of the house that anyone who really wanted could turn their heads and look out onto the front porch.

My grandma had placed me in the best position in the house to see Santa with my own eyes, and I loved every moment of it. I, of course, couldn’t let her in on this fact because I didn’t want her switching me out so that she got the chance to see him instead. I was a sensible child.

The night went by slow, as slow as any Christmas and even more so. Every second that went by, every moment, I was peering my head up to the glass trying to get a good view of the Man in Red. My Man in Red. And with every hour that went by, I found my sanity depleting and a sudden denial of the mystic himself.

What if Santa wasn’t real? What if he was a marketing trick used solely to tricks kids like I was then and sell Coca Cola? What if he was actually some wacko that everyone decided was fun enough to be given his own lore? Had I been played for a fool?

So many questions. I came up with so many questions and doubts and a motion of inept sadness swelled and tears began in my eyes. And then I saw him.

Parked in the middle of the street, a shining red sleigh could be seen, and I watched as a large, round man in robes with a sack held along his shoulder came walking up the stairs to the front porch of my Grandma’s house. I was so excited. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

Every shred of doubt, every morsel of scrutiny, every question that could be questioned fell out of mind and all the assurance in the world came to be. Santa was real, he was walking up the steps to deliver presents, and..

There was something in his left hand. It was dark yet silver-appearing.

It had a funny shape, and he carried it with a grip that insinuated he did not want the object to fall onto my grandma’s steps.

Just before reaching the porch, Santa set down the sack and whatever that other item was that he had with him, that items especially very carefully as if not to make a sound, and then scoured around the porch looking for something.

Santa opened and peered inside the mailbox, checked under the front mat, scoured the area whole searching for the house key. It seemed he couldn’t find it, and the longer its absence came to light the more he began to curse.

In an unhealthy amount of ostracized detail, the Jolly Commie (Communist) himself laid out clear the struggles he had endured previously that night, and made it well known how he felt about this current issue.

“Goddamn family,” he snarled. “If you want presents this year so bad, why the fuck wouldn’t you put the keys in an easy place to find? I ought to plow my goddamn sleigh into your house. Fucking old people. Jesus.”

Santa shook his head in high disapproval and wistfully turned his gaze to the black and silver instrument on the ground. With a groan, he bent down and picked it up. And that then was when I first realized what the instrument was, and it was when he used it on the front door that I became afraid.

Santa had a crowbar!

He was hacking away at the door harder than any home intruder I’ve experienced before or since, and with a fiery passion, his belly jiggled in an un-jolly form as he forced his way into the house.

It took a while for the lock to give way. Santa mentioned through his grunts that he was getting too old for the job, of that I am certain. Finally, he broke through the door barrier and stepped his way inside with the red sack, full of all the toys and joy my heart could have desired.

But that Christmas broke my spirit. I, a young child, knew then better than anyone older or younger that Santa had himself a holly jolly crowbar and that said crowbar could carry out any house invasion or break-in as seen necessary. I had no option but to rush to the landline and call in the cops. The operator begrudgingly sent a pair of officers to the house.

To my shock and horror, while the presents were still there and piled high in what seemed like an impossibly short amount of time, Santa had gone, leaving no trace nor cookies to be seen of his appearance.

My family had me put in to see a doctor the following day and years later, I still hear the sound of his wicked groans attempting to break himself in whenever anyone mentions the man to me.

If you or a loved one are close enough to get a good view of the front porch this Christmas and you don’t have a chimney, I strongly advise that you get one or that you seat yourself in a comfortable room far removed of any view of the outdoors, a good bonus would be to have the room soundproofed.

Have a fun holiday season!