Santa Claus

The topic for the December 6th installment of the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories hosted by Thomas MacEntee is: "Santa Claus. Did you ever send a letter to Santa? Did you ever visit Santa and “make a list?” Do you still believe in Santa Claus?"

Writing letters to Santa Claus is not something that I remember doing as a kid. I don't think we ever paid a visit to him either. Although, when I was about 14 years old, on the family's only summer vacation one of the places we visited was Santa Claus, Indiana. Of course, since it was summertime, Santa was not in residence at the time. And it wasn't the big commercial venture then that it is now.

I'm sure my brothers and I made lists for mom and dad, or maybe we just told them what we would like to have. Though we usually received clothes. The toys and games we were given were always things that we all would play with. It's not that we didn't believe in Santa, it, well, I guess it just wasn't that big a deal back then. Of course, it may also have been that we lived in the country and didn't have television. (The TV set came along when we moved into our new house in 1960, when I was 12 years old.)

As with most little kids, I discovered that Santa was not a real person from one of the older kids at school. Though when Santa came to school with veterans from the American Legion to deliver bags of candy and oranges and apples, those older kids were there, standing in line to receive their bag of goodies!

Do I still believe in Santa Claus? Well, let's just say that I believe in the spirit of Santa Claus and that all things are possible! Especially since Santa Claus has a blog!