The "Truth" about Santa

My wife and I were discussing Santa and when it was that we found out the "truth". She can share her stories later if she likes but I figure I'll send mine out into the world because I can. Just make sure you pay me royalties if you put it in your book.

The school year after I turned 12, my oldest brother left for college in Massachusetts. This meant a vacant room in the house. Up until this time I had shared a room with my 3 younger brothers. Being the middle of 7 kids, I'm not sure I had ever had a room all to myself before this time. But since my other two older sibling already had their own rooms, I got to move into the closet. You might think I'm exagerating. My standard twin bed fit wall-to-wall on one side of the room. It was originally built as my mom's sewing room which is what led to my final piece of innocence being ripped from my soul and flushed down the toilet like a dead goldfish. But after 7 kids she got the boot to the adjacent family room. Anyway, I moved in just before school started and was thrilled to finally have my own space. I'm sure my little brothers were glad I was gone too because I'm a bit weird and back then was a tad of a collector.

In this room was a window. Not a glass one but basically a large opening to the family room covered by wooden shutters. This was so my mom, when sewing, could look in on the kids playing in the family room. I think the shutters were installed so Paul(my oldest brother) could have some privacy. Now it gets a tad fuzzy from here. I'm not sure if it was that first Christmas or the next one but one of those two is when I found out. Christmas was ALWAYS in the family room.

The Christmas I learned the "truth" I had gone to bed in eager anticipation of what I might find the next morning. I believe I had asked for a dual-cassette deck player with a radio in it so I could copy tapes and record music off the radio. Yeah, do you remember doing that too? At some point during the night, Santa got really noisy with the tools trying to put together the ping pong table. I woke up and listened intently. At this point I'm pretty sure I had an idea that it was my parents but no solid proof. Then I heard my dad. He has a very distinct voice. And then I heard him say something that shocked me even more....he told Paul to bring him a screwdriver. Paul?? I got out of bed as quiety as I could and slunk over to the blinds. I slowly opened one a little bit and saw that the family room was ablaze in lights. Apparently a ping pong table is hard to put together with only one or two lights on. And sure enough, there was Paul helping my dad. The "truth" had been revealed. But not just the truth about Santa but the truth about my parents recruting the older kids for help!! I couldn't believe Paul was in on this and hadn't said anything!

And then my second oldest brother and my sister walked into the room with my mom. What?!?!? They all were in on this??? Why didn't anyone tell me!? I was flabbergasted and a little upset. I heard my dad say, "This table isn't for climbing on or playing games on or having a picnic on." I don't remember much after that so I think I went back to bed and fell asleep.

My naive belief was gone. No more could I push the burden of proof that he wasn't real on others. Santa had a belly that was round and shook like bowl full of jelly alright but he slept upstairs and never grew a beard. Part of me was crushed. However, I could have kept this a secret. I could have played dumb...except I did play dumb the next day.

After presents were opened and we were admiring our loot, my dad got everyone's attention and started on a speech about our new ping pong table that 'Santa' had brought. He said, "This table isn't for climbing all over or playing games on...." and as he paused to take a breath, I finished with, "or have a picnic on." My dad whirled and looked at me. Doh! I had forgotten that I wasn't supposed to have been privy to this information. All he said to me then and we never talked about it again was, "Someone stayed up later than they should have last night." My secret was out. I knew. And I knew that my dad knew I knew, ya know.

I have never told him that it was his banging around that woke me up. We never discussed that this was the first time I had real proof about the "truth". And I was never asked to help with Christmas until I was almost ready to leave the house some six plus years later. And that is the truth.