The Christmas Santa showed he could be a little bit human, too
By Margery McCurdy Plummer
Any person with a few Christmases behind him will surely remember those Christmas programs at church, usually on Christmas Eve. If they were unsophisticated, they were, nevertheless, presented with sincerity and enthusiasm.

The format seldom varied. Unlike Shakespearean plays in which young boys took women’s roles because acting wasn’t considered a decent profession for women, there were no crossovers here.

Wise men were boys who wore bathrobes and towel turbans wrapped around their heads, the head dress set off with a glittering pin dug from a mother’s jewelry box. Shepherds were also bathrobed boys who wore Arab style headdress and carried long poles (staffs), indicating their occupations.

Although we knew no more about angels then than we do now, whether they were male or female or even if they could dance on the head of a pin, they always appeared as females. Their cheesecloth or gauze robes belted with silver tinsel, and they often sported glittering halos, tinsel-wrapped wire that trembled precariously as the angels moved.

Mary was always the most mature looking girl available, one who looked like a mother. Josephs were hard to come by. Older boys, 14 or 15, wouldn’t be caught dead playing a family type role, especially as a husband. Consequently, Joseph was usually a willing younger boy who didn’t worry much about such things and one who looked as though Mary could have been his mother. Baby Jesus was a small doll.

These actors and actresses were silent for the most part, presenting a sort of tableau, but there was a group of speakers and singers who presented a short play, “out front” people. However, lines recited easily at the supper table were often lost on stage, and tension mounted in the audience, particularly among parents who listened with apprehension as some performers hoped for a miracle to send them their forgotten lines.

When all else failed, one could hear the voice of a prompter who was crouched beneath a pulpit or behind a door, as in whispered but audible tones she refreshed the memories of the young thespians.

Angels held cardboard squares lettered in glitter which, if the angels stood in order, spelled “Peace on Earth,” “Merry Christmas,” or “Merry Xmas,” depending on the number of performers. If one or two persons were out of place, and it happened sometimes, the message was lost. At appropriate pauses in the speakers’ lines, the angels sang straight from a hymn book traditional Christmas songs, “Joy to the World,” “O, Come All Ye Faithful,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and “Silent Night.”

The highlight of the evening was the appearance of Santa in a red suit giving a “Ho! Ho! Ho!” and a “Merry Christmas” to everyone. One Christmas I recall as being just a little different, Santa entered almost in a frenzy of Christmas cheer, bells jingling as he came down the aisle talking to children, promising them anything they asked for. When he reached the front of the sanctuary and turned around, he looked magnificent.

His suit was new, not one of those old, tired ones dug out year after year. It was bright red, trimmed with white fur. He had a white beard, a red cap, a red face, red nose and, not surprisingly as I learned, red, red eyes. As he regained his balance after a near slip while picking up a gift, I realized Santa was a little tipsy, fortified perhaps against the cold night. I don’t know who engaged this Santa. Maybe a usual churchman wasn’t available. Anyway, someone had secured a townsman not known for his temperance.

The Christmas tree that year was very special, a cedar that touched the ceiling. It had been decorated by many hands and would probably have been a decorator’s nightmare. To me it was the prettiest tree I’d ever seen. The gifts were distributed by Santa’s helpers, and if anyone noticed anything different about Santa, nothing was said. But as the evening wore on, Santa, like a wind-up toy, began to run down and down.

The room was warm and he was growing tired and, I suspect, a little sleepy. The cold, fruit smelling bags of oranges, apples and candy were handed out and Santa, in what seemed to be a last ditch effort to stay in character, walked down the aisle waving and saying his hearty “Merry Christmas” until he got out the door.

We children always waited breathlessly to hear Santa’s bells jingling as he got into his sleigh and, we supposed, rose out of sight heading to our houses as soon as we got home and were in bed.

This night, instead of bells, all we heard was the sound of a car engine as someone drove Santa out of sight, perhaps to bed him down for a long winter’s night.

You’d think that would have shaken my faith in Christmas and Santa Claus, but it didn’t. These days, if I get a little disillusioned or cynical about the identity of Santa or the spirit of Christmas, I think of that Christmas long ago, of the tall tree, the cold cellphane bag with fruit and candy, the gifts, and of a Santa, not a perfect giver of gifts or a paragon of virtue, but one who showed me somehow that even Santa, who told us we must be good, could be a little bit human himself.