There is a moment of sadness when children suddenly realize who Santa Claus really is.   I had that moment many years ago when we lived in Lakewood, Ohio, in a four-family home.

Our neighbor, Doracas, lived upstairs from us.  She was several years older than most of the other children who lived in the other three rentals, my sisters and I included.  I thought she knew everything in the world.  Doracas was a spiteful child.  She always wanted to be the banker when we played Monopoly, and oddly enough, she always won, having the most money and property.  One day, my sister, Lynn, told Doracas that she didn’t want to play Monopoly anymore because Doracas cheated.  Doracas yelled loud and long about how she didn’t cheat, but Lynn told her that as banker Doracas always held the bank’s money in her lap and would steal the $100 dollar bills and hide them until she landed on property that she suddenly had enough money to buy.  Doracas was busted and we never played Monopoly again.

Doracas also tried to tell us that there was no Santa Claus.  She said our parents bought all of the toys we got for Christmas and put them under the tree after we went to bed.  Well, after the Monopoly cheating was exposed, I stopped believing anything Doracas said.

My parents made sure that my sisters and I went to a department store to see Santa every year.  We all went together and sat in his lap at the same time, so that my little sister, Doni, wouldn’t be afraid.  This year was no exception.  We asked for dolls and Lego’s and slippers and promised that we had been good all year long.

As Christmas was drawing nearer and the weather off of Lake Erie was getting colder, my sisters and I played more inside than outside.  My mother wouldn’t abide running in the house but hide and seek was OK.   One day, we were playing hide and seek in my parent’s bedroom.  After we had all been “found,” my little sister stood up and looked over the headboard of the bed and said, “Look!  Toys!”  Soon, we were all looking in this bag that was stuffed behind my parent’s bed, out of sight.

Apparently, we were too quiet, so my mother came looking for us.  She found us looking in the bag and was very upset with us. She put everything back in the bag and seemed to have calmed down enough to tell us exactly what we had found.

She explained that Santa had left our Christmas presents with our parents early because he didn’t have time to wrap them.  She said, “Don’t you tell your father that you found this bag, he would be so disappointed.  And don’t go looking in things that aren’t yours.”    We all felt bad and told her that we wouldn’t ever do that again.

Christmas morning came and many of the presents in the bag we found were under the tree along with several others.   Under the watchful eye of my mother, we were very excited to get each present that our father handed us, “From Santa Claus,” and acted like we had never seen the gift before.

Years later, I thought of that day and laughed because for once, we children were the Santa Claus to my father, keeping secrets and the Santa Claus tradition alive, to his delight. And, as adults, whenever my father gave us a gift or money, no matter what time of year it was, he would always say, “This is from Santa Claus,”….and so it was.