Sinterklaas

As I sit here at 1:40 a.m., mere hours before waking to the smell of pine, gift-wrap paper and my cat Rufus' peculiar odor, I struggle with the fact that Christmas simply doesn't engage my inner child as much as I desperately want it to. This is not a new topic I've contemplated, having written about it--and thereby exposing more emotion and personal past than probably required by the print media--in the Los Angeles Loyolan university newspaper during my stint as arts & entertainment editor. In said article, I discussed how I yearned to reclaim the completely and welcomingly overbearing sense of joy during what to me was basically a non-religious expression of the wonders of materialism. As being raised by a parents who were either (a) agnostic or (b) atheistic, Jesus didn't even enter the equation until around age 10 (and it didn't even phase me until I entered Catholic school at age 12). I did, however, find it gleefully ironic how greatly I enjoyed something so fastened to commercialism and selfishness and cared not of its sociological ramifications. Remember, I was a strange child. Strange adult, too.

What really works for me about December 25th, what really makes it all click together, is that it had taken on a life of its own, despite the widespread crassness we associate with stuff like Miracle on 34th Street, and is truly about sharing. A family can sit beside the fire, sipping hot chocolate (or with my family nowadays, coffee) and simply let each other know that we have not forgotten what each of us represents to as part of a whole. It's funny, yet oddly telling, that most movies strive for this feeling but almost ultimately fail. The sole exceptions are Love Actually, which takes the holiday spirit of family and transposes it onto the concept of operatic love, and The Ref (which also happens to be the best Christmas movie of all time) as it chronicles what can ultimately bring us back together, even if that something is ribald language, sex jokes and Denis Leary with a beard.

But as for the article, the reason for its existence was how this holiday spark was rekindled by the presence of Robert Zemeckis' glorious and overblown motion-capture masterpiece The Polar Express. It was 2004, and this director whom I've always credited with educating me in the infinite sprawl of what great imagination can bring to the screen (for that I present to you Who Framed Roger Rabbit), and whom I've claimed has never ever ever made a bad movie, had caught me completely blindsided with his roller coaster of a family film. The Polar Express had done more for that little 10-year-old inside of me than everything I'd been trying to force upon myself. (This would include my very old videotape of Disney compilations of their Christmas short cartoons, as well as Mickey's Christmas Carol, which is probably the closest I've ever come to literally establishing my own personal nostalgia.)

But this isn't why I have restarted this theme for the sake of this website. Not exactly. Moreso, this is about the real reason why we all care about Christmas (at least, American non-denominational Christmas) each and every year. And his name is Santa Claus.

No, I don't believe in him. Why should I? I'm 24, for god's sake. Again I pull you as readers in another direction. I apologize.

My real question--and this is a goddamn fucking important one in my head--is how to deal with Santa Claus when it comes to my future children. How can I get the most out of the stories and fantasies and the Rankin-Bass claymation thingamajigs and how the Grinch did, indeed, steal Christmas? And how would I subject them to the wonders of that section of childhood, but somehow steer them to avoid the probably pointless determination of my current obsession to reclaim the spirit?

I grew up with the stories, sure. I cannot remember at which age I discovered there was no Santa Claus, but it didn't come as any form of dramatic shock to me, and it certainly didn't destroy my innocence. Some well-adjusted psychiatrist within me would, of course, probably tell me that this very article is, in fact, a demonsration of lost innocence, and that it most likely stems from that fateful day where a jolly fat man become an imaginary jolly fat man to me. And to this psychiatrist I would say, "Fuck off, smartass." I'm just saying that there were no hysterics, no bully in elementary school sought to end that piece of imagination within or an awkward sit-down with my parents come mid-Chanukkah. I would like to believe that clever little me figured it out all on my own, but I have a sneaking suspicion that my parents did, indeed, slyly steer me into this discovery.

I do, however, recall being at my uncle's annual winter Jackl party (mom's maiden name) when I was very very young. Let's say age four, but I could be wrong. While Jim was probably off being an alcoholic lawyer with the adults, the kids at the party were given their enjoyment by the appearance of one Santa Claus. (Whether this was some hired actor or a present child's parent I cannot say.) What I do recall with startling lucidity is me looking at Santa's feet, turning up again, and said with a shrug, "Santa, why are you wearing Reeboks?"

[Post-publication note: Apparently, that very Santa was indeed my Uncle Jim. It's lucky I didn't follow up the above comment with "...and why do you smell like cabernet?"]

I oddly never remember sitting on a mall Santa's lap, although I do have some memories of walking around the Hilltop Mall in Richmond 'round the holidays and seeing other children partake in this very same thing. (It does strike me as an especially creepy notion now, especially after witnessing a very, well Nip/Tuck episode of Nip/Tuck episode where surgeon Sean McNamara dons the suit, gets drunk off his rocker, and receives a blowjob from a sluttly midget in an elf costume.) I don't think I'll subject my children to this, although if the mall does present Santa's chair atop a giant slide as in A Christmas Story, I may change my mind.

This is something to discuss with my future wife (hello, fee! Sorry for ruining that moment of Nip/Tuck for you, but you may have caught up with season four by the time you read this and know that Julia deserves for her husband to get a midget-job), and I feel it may be one of the most important discussions we ever have about raising our chillins. Should we stick with the American Montgomery Ward version of Christmas (this is pretty much where the idea of "fake snow" comes from) or keep it a little less, well, evil. Will they learn of Mr. Claus the same way I do and not have a major freakout and, as aforementioned, lose their innocence? At the very least, will there be milk and cookies?

At this point, it is 2:28, I have watched the first 45 minutes of The Polar Express on DVD (all the parts before they arrive at the North Pole), slightly perturbed that the San Francisco Metreon did not bring back this very film in 3-D IMAX like they did last year and the year before. I have switched over to the Disney short cartoon compilation (the quality of the 20-year-old tape is miserable, but that's part of its charm, like listening to Louis Armstrong on a record player). It includes two separate shorts about Santa (one regarding the manufacturing of his toys, the second on delivering them), a Mickey-Pluto adventure where Chip and Dale reside within the Christmas tree and unintentionally wreak havoc, a Disney-characters-on-ice bit in which Goofy ice-fishes using pieces of tobacco, an episode where a snowball fight between Donald Duck and his nephews devolves into an amount of violence startling for its time period, a slapstick sketch in which Donald is a department store gift-wrapper, and the winter-based climax of Sword in the Stone. I usually skip over the Bambi, Cinderella and Peter Pan segments, however.

The crown jewel of the tape (which also has some great Halloween shorts later on), however, is a personal favorite and is the standard of beautiful animation, as least according to me. It's called "Once Upon A Wintertime," and is gorgeous times 3000.



It taken from Disney's 1948 film Melody Time and is one of the biggest bases for what romance truly entails in my life. Here's a few links, but alas there is no YouTube video of this wondrous achievement.

http://www.disneyshorts.org/years/1948/onceuponawintertime.html

http://www.pettipond.com/laterimages/comics/onceuponawintertime/index.htm

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wardomatic/sets/72057594074549599/

I cannot do the short justice, and would rather continue indulging in this video before sleeping, waking and watching Mickey's Christmas Carol before opening my presents with my family.

I will, nevertheless, comment on a strange occurence. Last year, I could not find the Disney tape, and had to settle for the DVD version of Polar Express, which in itself worked a charm into me, but not as well as the videotape or a combination of the two. This year, I re-discovered it in the family room hidden in the small furnace we have never used in this house. 20 minutes ago, "Once Upon a Wintertime" came on and started its brilliant and soul-lifting tune. And...well...I kind of cried.

Maybe I have lost the innocence. But at least I didn't grow up with the Danish story of Sinterklaas, as read by David Sedaris in his essay "6 to 8 Black Men."