Remembering Christmases Past: The Year I Blew Santa's Cover

Here in western Washington, the only white Christmas I'll be having is one of my childhood memories from Christmases growing up on the East Side of St. Paul. And those memories are in abundance. I remember my dad building a cardboard fireplace one year because the house we lived in had no chimney for Santa to come down. I recall many Christmases at my Grandma and Grandpa Ray's house on Wheelock Parkway, especially because I got to help decorate the tree, being the oldest grandchild. I also remember being very embarrassed each year as my Grandpa Harvard took out his cherished decoration for the front door - a tree made out of tin cans interlaced with multi-colored lights. Well, it was festive.

But one particular family holiday celebration lives in my mind, and for which I went down in family history as the child who ruined Christmas for the younger children. It was the year I ratted out my Uncle Al as Santa Claus.

Al, his wife Arlene, and their son John were pioneers in my mom's family, being the first to venture away from the Swede Hollow area of the East Side. Most of my maternal relatives lived nearby, and more than a few cousins were schoolmates.

But my mom's oldest sibling had done the unthinkable - built a home away not only from the East Side but from St. Paul. (Well, at least they stayed in Minnesota.) Their new Danish modern home was tucked on the hill in the woods outside of Lakeland, down near the St. Croix. Lakeland at that point was mostly rural, with a small strip mall having a gas station, a post office, and not much more. There were new homes going up close to the road, and they were occupied by young families.

Our family holiday celebrations were fairly predictable: Christmas Eve dinner and gifts at my Grandma Dewall's house on Sherwood, then later to candle light Christmas service at our family church, Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran. And yes, most of my mom's family went there as well, although a few renegades had jumped ship and joined Arlington Hills Lutheran when GA moved from the original church at Sims and Weide to where the current church is now, on Arcade Street out near Keller. To be fair, Arlington Hills was originally an offshoot of GA, established as an English-speaking congregation, since at that time the services at Gustavus Adolphus were in Swedish.

Christmas morning my immediate family opened gifts at our house. Then later we would go to my Grandpa and Grandma Ray's house where all his siblings and their families would gather for Christmas dinner and then gift-giving. We ended the day by taking a long drive around the East Side looking at people's lights. Wheelock Parkway itself was a wonderland, so I don't believe we had to go far.

When my Grandma Dewall sold the family home on Sherwood and moved into an upstairs apartment on Lane Place, the holiday festivities were handed over to her son Al, and he and his wife were happy to host our rather large group at their new home. It had plenty of room, plus lots of windows that provided an incredible view of both the woods in the back and the valley below. It was an enchanting place to be, and Al and Arlene were jovial hosts.

Al was a school teacher at Mechanic Arts in St. Paul, and Arlene worked at Cleveland Junior High. As teachers, they were very much concerned with doing things for children. This point is particularly important for what follows.

Our celebrations at the Lakeland house consisted of the traditional Swedish Christmas smorgasbord, complete with herring sent from my grandma's siblings in 'the old country.' Instead of cranberry sauce there were lingonberries. And after dinner, Santa would make an appearance with gifts for the grandchildren. His arrival was heralded by stomping on the roof and the sound of jingling bells. The dog would bark, and Santa himself would jump off the roof into the snow on the patio (the house was built into the hill, so the roof edge was just a few feet off the ground at the edge). Then we would let him in the sliding door and the smaller children would mob him.

But somehow each year, my Uncle Al would miss the man in the red suit, being out getting wood for the fireplace or some such task. I think I was about five or six when that thought occurred to me, and so when Al got up to leave after dinner, I followed him to encourage him to stay around for Santa's visit.

You can imagine my shock when I burst into the mud room next to the garage in time to see him climbing into a red suit and adjusting the white wig and beard. He looked at me in absolute horror, whispering that I shouldn't tell anyone and go back to the living room. Then he grabbed a large sack of presents and went out to his car and drove off. (What I found out later was that some of the families in the homes down the hill had arranged for him to play Santa for their families, and this became a tradition for him each year. I think he enjoyed it as much as they did, or perhaps even more. He and Arlene loved kids, but they themselves only had one of their own. Being able to bring joy to other children meant a lot to him. But I'm getting ahead of myself.)

Not tell anyone? Are you kidding? I was suddenly in possession of an incredible piece of information: My Uncle Al was Santa Claus! There were few things I liked better than to be the first one to reveal a secret. I ran back to the living room, and nearly out of breath shouted it out. What had been a bustle of activity suddenly turned into deathly silence. Every mother in the room looked at me with a glare. Smaller children turned to their parents in alarm, and I was quickly ushered out of the room by my father, who made some sort of weak remark about my being one for telling stories.

Too late. The damage had been done. Those who were beginning to question the reality of Santa Claus now had all the evidence they needed to stop believing. Things were fairly quiet while Santa passed out the gifts, and I was made to sit by myself away from the others. My mom took possession of my present, and I was not allowed to open it, having to watch while the other kids opened theirs.

It was a long ride to church that Christmas Eve. The interstate had not yet been built, and the drive between St. Paul and Lakeland was mainly along Hudson Road, now mostly freeway frontage road. Getting over to our church on Arcade took over a half an hour, and I was instructed to think about what I had done and once I got to the church to ask God to forgive me for ruining Christmas. (I'm not sure why I couldn't ask him in the car; apparently He was only on duty in the church, or so I thought.)

It's funny, even though from that point on I realized Santa Claus wasn't a real person, I still enjoyed the illusion. My siblings and I still kept getting our pictures taken with Santa at the Emporium (or later at Dayton's), probably until I was in sixth grade. The incident with Uncle Al was never spoken of again, at least in my presence. But I suspect it provided plenty of conversation for the adults. And it certainly fueled the idea that Tom and Joan's oldest child was something of a trouble maker. So be it. But the next year when Santa made his appearance, you can be sure I sat quietly on the couch waiting for him to arrive and then joined in with the younger ones in shouting with glee. I suspect some of the younger ones hadn't yet figured it out, and the older ones didn't seem to mind.

But the adults probably never forgot. Along with Rudolph, I went down in history. Merry Christmas!