Spying Santa

By SCOTT SAALMAN

Scaramouch

“Don’t look out the window.”

She repeated this sentence over and over as twilight leaked its ink across southern Indiana.

“Don’t look out the window.”

It sounded like a good title for a drive-in horror movie, but actually this was our mother’s five-word Christmas Eve mantra, which always began at 5:30 p.m.

“Don’t look out the window.”

We still butt-scooted our way toward the living room window, of course, inch by cautious inch, me and my younger brother, Patrick, but Mom’s voice always caused us to abort our mission before the living room curtain could be parted for a look-see.

Even from a different room, out of sight, she knew what we were doing. “Don’t look out the window,” she’d warn, hollering over Buck Owens and the Buckaroos’ “Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy” playing on the stereo console. Dad always got a kick out of that song.

It played 100 times that day, confounding me with its lyrics: “Santa looked a lot like daddy/Or daddy looked a lot like him/It’s not the way I had him pictured/Santa was much too thin/Well he didn’t come down the chimney/So Mama must have let him in/Santa looked a lot like daddy/Or daddy looked a lot like him.”

There was a hidden message in that song. The sly wink-wink between adults when it played told me so.

“Don’t look out the window.”

“Why can’t we?”

“He won’t come if you do. He’ll fly right over our house and take your toys to other girls and boys who don’t look out the window.”

It was torture being blocked from looking out the front window. Santa’s visit couldn’t happen before the arrival of Grandma and Grandpa Goffinet, plus uncles and aunts. We prayed mom’s side of the family wouldn’t run out of beer before reaching our house, or else they’d have to detour to T&R Liquors, thus pre-empting our Christmas. I doubt the Three Wise Men posed such a problem. Oddly, Uncle Bill and Aunt Bonnie were always missing from this gathering. It concerned me that Bill and Bonnie apparently didn’t care for Christmas.

Our house was one of the few I knew of where Santa didn’t mind being seen in person. We actually sat on his lap, and he personally handed us our presents pulled from his huge cloth sack (the toys always being what we wished for).

One year, though, Santa pulled a real zinger. He brought in a sack of twigs – the dreaded switches we were always warned about by our parents, usually beginning around Dec. 1. My heart dropped seeing those switches. That Christmas song was right after all. He does know if you’ve been naughty or nice. I had a summer flashback of me coaxing my brother to poop in his ball cap, much to the amusement of our visiting cousins. Patrick saw the switches and burst into tears. The aunts and uncles, even our grandparents, laughed, nearly spilling their beers. Their laughing, fiendish faces reflected off the Christmas tree’s shiny glass ball ornaments – the worst holiday moment ever. This wasn’t Norman Rockwell; this was Norman Rockhell.

The bag of switches was just a big fat joke – though it made a lasting point. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ho. Ho. Ho. The real sack of toys, pulled from outside, cheered us up.

Santa never stayed long. There were many houses to visit. When the heels of his black boots exited through the doorway and all that jingling ended, mom would warn us once more, “Don’t look out the window,” depriving us from seeing the great sled’s liftoff with Rudolph leading the way.

On my 11th Christmas, though, after Santa stepped outside and mom issued her final window warning, I did look out the front window. I saw Santa climb into the passenger side of my Uncle Bill’s big brown Buick. Aunt Bonnie was behind the wheel. Santa pulled off his cottony beard. (It was explained to me that Santa does exist; however, it’s a great big world to cover in 24 hours and sometimes he needs officially-sanctioned stand-ins to blah, blah, blah . . .)

Even now, I wish I had listened to my mom.

Never look out the window.

Scott Saalman also writes columns for the Dubois County Herald and the Evansville Courier & Press. He is now a proud Fishers resident. You can reach him at scottsaalman@gmail.com.