Up On The Roof
It may come as a surprise to those who know me as a middle aged skeptic (some call me “bitter”), but I was a very credulous child. A true believer. However once one gets to a certain point in kid-hood one becomes doubtful about certain things like the existence of a certain, non-Krampus Christmas figure. It seems silly not to believe nowadays now that everyone can follow the government track of the old guy without having to call a 976 number and pay a quarter a throw like I did as a kid. I mean, if you can follow him on the Web he must be real!
Here in New York old St. Nick had severe flight restrictions in those days even though it was the pre-9/11 era. You see, because of the high volume of Christmas Eve air traffic and the usual weather-related delays that the airlines experienced Santa would never receive clearance to enter the airspace until around 3 am when the air traffic was light. So it was that no kid was ever awake to see the man himself dropping off the goods. Well, I don’t need to tell you that belief rates plummeted lower that G.W. Bush’s approval rating by the time kids reached double-digit ages.
In my family, we had a solution.
The house I grew up in had two roofs. There was the roof over the second floor and there was a second roof over the front porch and front hallway. One could easily access the lower roof through the bedroom windows. In fact I would sometimes climb out the window and lay on the roof looking up at the trees when I was bugged by something. Not for very long because the shingles were pretty scratchy and uncomfortable, but even in small doses it was therapeutic. Of course, I would only do this in the warm weather. In the wintertime it was icy and windy and uncomfortable. And it was also where the Fake Santa Landings were staged.
See, when I was very little I didn’t know anything about airspace restrictions or anything like that. So my folks told me Santa hit our neighborhood at 7pm on Christmas Eve but that he only went to those homes where the children were tucked away in bed. It was a perfect cover: I would never mention it to any other kids because any appropriately-greed-driven kid of 8 would figure less for them means more for me so who cared if they got passed up because they were still awake.
So it was that at 6:55 every Christmas Eve we would plunk down a plate of cookies and some milk on the telephone stand (does anyone have telephone stands anymore?) and my mom would take me up to my parents’ bedroom and tuck me in and tell me to pretend I was sleeping. After a few minutes passed she’d say “Do you hear something?” in a voice that seemed inappropriately loud but still I’d just burrow further under the covers to make sure I wasn’t seen to be awake. Like the NSA, Santa was always watching.
Suddenly on the (lower) roof, there arose such a clatter. Well, more of a thumping really.
“Look at the window!” mom would whisper.
I would peek out from under the covers and see a light! It was Rudolph, right outside bedroom the window! Holy crap! I dove back under the blankets. Minutes passed, maybe five, but they felt like five hours. There would be a “Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas!” from the bottom of the stairs followed by more thumping on the roof. The light disappeared. After a minute my mom would say that the coast was clear. We would hurry downstairs and I would be shown the empty milk glass and cookie plate as further proof of the visitation. The living room would be filled with gifts that weren’t there minutes before. We dove into an orgy of paper-ripping, gift stacking materialistic joy unparalleled on any other day of the year.
One year my family even went the extra mile and got someone (I suspect it was one of my brothers-in-law) to dress in a Santa suit and mom “snuck” me down to see him. Our staircase to the second floor had three steps on the bottom before making a 90 degree right turn to the second floor so we went to the bottom step of the main staircase and peered around just in time to the St. Nick downing a glass of milk. I remember the flash of a camera toward Santa at that moment but I never saw the picture. Like other supernatural beings, Santa was immune to photography, I supposed. In any event, I was a true believer for years based on that experience.
When I was 9 years old two of my sisters gave birth roughly 6 months apart. A year later I was clued in by mom. Essentially, the message was this: Santa doesn’t hit NYC until the middle of the night. We put on a show just so you would keep believing which made sure he’d keep visiting. But now you’ve get to participate in what we did.
As it turned out, getting to be part of the show was just as cool if not cooler than being the audience. Every year I couldn’t wait to get out there with the flashlight and an old pair of shoes to bang. As my dad got older and his health got worse it became a solo act that we kept up for years because my family (my brother in particular) kept cranking out kids. They all had to be kept on the straight and narrow like I was. As the older ones got older, they got to help with other parts of the routine like pulling the bags of gifts out of various closets and getting them under the tree while the littler kids squirmed under the covers with Nanny (which is what they all called my mom) on the lookout for the all-clear sign. So it came to pass that I spent part of many a Christmas Eve out on the roof with old dress shoes and a flashlight. As I got older, this would often be done after having a few nips of Christmas Cheer which made it more interesting.
Those times were the best Christmas moments I ever had.
Those times are the best Christmas moments I ever will have.
Merry Christmas everyone. May you find those moments for yourself and hang onto them forever.
Here in New York old St. Nick had severe flight restrictions in those days even though it was the pre-9/11 era. You see, because of the high volume of Christmas Eve air traffic and the usual weather-related delays that the airlines experienced Santa would never receive clearance to enter the airspace until around 3 am when the air traffic was light. So it was that no kid was ever awake to see the man himself dropping off the goods. Well, I don’t need to tell you that belief rates plummeted lower that G.W. Bush’s approval rating by the time kids reached double-digit ages.
In my family, we had a solution.
The house I grew up in had two roofs. There was the roof over the second floor and there was a second roof over the front porch and front hallway. One could easily access the lower roof through the bedroom windows. In fact I would sometimes climb out the window and lay on the roof looking up at the trees when I was bugged by something. Not for very long because the shingles were pretty scratchy and uncomfortable, but even in small doses it was therapeutic. Of course, I would only do this in the warm weather. In the wintertime it was icy and windy and uncomfortable. And it was also where the Fake Santa Landings were staged.
See, when I was very little I didn’t know anything about airspace restrictions or anything like that. So my folks told me Santa hit our neighborhood at 7pm on Christmas Eve but that he only went to those homes where the children were tucked away in bed. It was a perfect cover: I would never mention it to any other kids because any appropriately-greed-driven kid of 8 would figure less for them means more for me so who cared if they got passed up because they were still awake.
So it was that at 6:55 every Christmas Eve we would plunk down a plate of cookies and some milk on the telephone stand (does anyone have telephone stands anymore?) and my mom would take me up to my parents’ bedroom and tuck me in and tell me to pretend I was sleeping. After a few minutes passed she’d say “Do you hear something?” in a voice that seemed inappropriately loud but still I’d just burrow further under the covers to make sure I wasn’t seen to be awake. Like the NSA, Santa was always watching.
Suddenly on the (lower) roof, there arose such a clatter. Well, more of a thumping really.
“Look at the window!” mom would whisper.
I would peek out from under the covers and see a light! It was Rudolph, right outside bedroom the window! Holy crap! I dove back under the blankets. Minutes passed, maybe five, but they felt like five hours. There would be a “Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas!” from the bottom of the stairs followed by more thumping on the roof. The light disappeared. After a minute my mom would say that the coast was clear. We would hurry downstairs and I would be shown the empty milk glass and cookie plate as further proof of the visitation. The living room would be filled with gifts that weren’t there minutes before. We dove into an orgy of paper-ripping, gift stacking materialistic joy unparalleled on any other day of the year.
One year my family even went the extra mile and got someone (I suspect it was one of my brothers-in-law) to dress in a Santa suit and mom “snuck” me down to see him. Our staircase to the second floor had three steps on the bottom before making a 90 degree right turn to the second floor so we went to the bottom step of the main staircase and peered around just in time to the St. Nick downing a glass of milk. I remember the flash of a camera toward Santa at that moment but I never saw the picture. Like other supernatural beings, Santa was immune to photography, I supposed. In any event, I was a true believer for years based on that experience.
When I was 9 years old two of my sisters gave birth roughly 6 months apart. A year later I was clued in by mom. Essentially, the message was this: Santa doesn’t hit NYC until the middle of the night. We put on a show just so you would keep believing which made sure he’d keep visiting. But now you’ve get to participate in what we did.
As it turned out, getting to be part of the show was just as cool if not cooler than being the audience. Every year I couldn’t wait to get out there with the flashlight and an old pair of shoes to bang. As my dad got older and his health got worse it became a solo act that we kept up for years because my family (my brother in particular) kept cranking out kids. They all had to be kept on the straight and narrow like I was. As the older ones got older, they got to help with other parts of the routine like pulling the bags of gifts out of various closets and getting them under the tree while the littler kids squirmed under the covers with Nanny (which is what they all called my mom) on the lookout for the all-clear sign. So it came to pass that I spent part of many a Christmas Eve out on the roof with old dress shoes and a flashlight. As I got older, this would often be done after having a few nips of Christmas Cheer which made it more interesting.
Those times were the best Christmas moments I ever had.
Those times are the best Christmas moments I ever will have.
Merry Christmas everyone. May you find those moments for yourself and hang onto them forever.
Comments
When I was old enough to "know," I still went upstairs to help Nanny with the younger cousins, and eventually stayed downstairs to help put out the hidden gifts.
I could go on and on, but you said it best, "Those times were the best Christmas moments I ever had."