Me, You & the Music I’m Putting You Through
 
~by Sheila Squillante
 

“I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”

Music & Lyrics by Tommie Connor
Recorded by Jimmy Boyd
1952

***

Santa Claus died on Easter Sunday, 1975 or ‘76.

I remember the thin spring sunlight coming through my morning window and the thrill of that first moment of wakefulness that sprung me out of bed and down the hallway to the living room to see.

Yes! It had come!

There, on the coffee table, two pastel plastic baskets wrapped in cellophane and heaped with jellybeans and sugared treats. A giant chocolate bunny towering above.

My sister and I, delighted, dug in. Our mother, equally delighted, gestured at the stairs coming from the front door, “Look, girls! Look what The Bunny left!”

On each step, a powdery paw print, whiter than the off-white carpeting, beautiful as brocade.

Wait just a minute…

It’s April in Lexington, KY. There is no snow on the ground and bunnies do not, unless they are suffering from some kind of horrible holiday alopecia, leave clumps of fur in perfectly tailored paw-shapes.

Thus did I, at five or six years old, call bullshit on this whole Easter Bunny Thing.

And then, in the next moment, the Tooth Fairy, leprechauns and, finally, Santa, all went POOF as well.

My mother saw the veil fall away and whisked me into the bedroom before I could spill my protest to my little sister. “Please,” she said, “help us pretend.” Continue reading →