A father and son sat bathed in the glow of a large fake Christmas tree. It’s white lights bathed them quietly in its warmth. The little boy broke the silence and began to speak.
“You know that if you do the math, there’s no way Santa can visit EVERY house around the world in 24 hours.”
Gibson looked at his son Davis and shook his head. The kid was six going on 46.
“There are a lot of naughty kids, Davis. It cuts Santa’s workload considerably.”
Davis bought his dad’s explanation and went back to playing ZombieAttack on his dad’s phone.
But Gibson knew that his son probably would Google it later tonight. The Internet had sped up the death of innocence. His son could now be exposed to things he never knew about until he had joined the Navy. His kid could learn in three simple keystrokes what it took him three cruises on the U.S.S. Nimitz to learn.
Then his son dropped the big one:
“Is Santa real?”
Gibson remembered when he had asked his father that question. Of course, Gibson had been 16, not six.
“Do you want him to be real?” Gibson asked in his best lawyerly dodge.
“Yeah.”
“Then he’s real. If you believe, you’ll receive.”
Davis sat silently, trying to wrap his mind around his father’s answer. He wanted to believe in Santa and didn’t care what Jenny Franklin said.
Silence quickly returned and the Father and son stared at the tree. Gibson remembered lying on his parent’s living room couch and staring at their Scotch pine tree. It had red bulbs that burned as hot as the sun. How the house didn’t burn down was nothing short of a Christmas Miracle. Back then, it took forever for Christmas to arrive. But then again, Christmas vacation had lasted much longer then. Now he worked all the time. And that made time speed by as fast as Santa’s reindeer. College had been when he noticed time starting to fly. Now it was supersonic.
Davis grabbed a handful of sand dabs and drank some milk. Powered sugar ringed his mouth. Eating sand dab cookies was a Christmas tradition passed along from his grandparents.
Gibson’s grandparents. Gibson remembered waiting for them to arrive from Texas. He’d fall asleep on the den floor, hoping that would cause time to speed up so they’d get there a little bit quicker.
Time did speed up. And then it ran out.
“Dad, what do you want from Santa?”
“Socks from my grandparents, hand delivered.”
Davis patted his dad’s back. “Santa’s good. But I’m not sure he’s that good. Hey, you know that Rudolph’s on TV. Let’s go watch it together. I hear Hermie wants to be a dentist and and Bumbles bounce.”
Rudolph. At least some things never changed.
Gibson picked his son up and carried him into the family room to watch TV. As they watched the Rankin Bass classic, time ground to a halt.
And for Gibson, that was the finest Christmas gift of all.