Eva Marie Everson
I opened my mailbox the other day to find Amazon’s Holiday Kids Gift Book, which boasts 100 colorful pages featuring over 600 toys and gifts. This tiny catalogue reminded me of a very special “wish book” that arrived in our home every year . . . and right on time.
I don’t remember when the Sears Wish Book came, I only remember that it did. I would guestimate that it found its way into the hands of my little brother and me somewhere between Halloween and Thanksgiving, but then again, in our day, we didn’t start talking Christmas until after Thanksgiving.
Each year, Mother placed the 400+ pages of pure commercial joy where we could find it–probably on the farm-style kitchen table–along with a pad of paper and a #2 pencil. Our job, my brother’s and mine, was to take our time, find what we hoped Santa would bring us, write said items down on the paper (page number, item number, description), never exceed $30. If we went over our $30 limit, we could only hope Santa would forgive our inability to stay within our means and that we’d find everything we’d asked for under the tree on Christmas morning.
As a little boy, my brother was quick to write down the page numbers that displayed GI Joes and toy guns. As he got older, those toy guns became BB guns and then, as he got even older, hunting rifles.
My order, in my earliest years, was confined to Barbie dolls and their clothes, and board games–Sorry, Life, Mystery Date. As I got older, I “wished” for electronics, vinyl records, archery sets, and clothes. For me, nothing smells more like Christmas morning than the scent of a good electronic–turntables, tape recorders, and the like.
The whole “nothing totaling over $30” rule is what brought down the house of cards my parents had managed for years to create and keep upright. That and the fact that, no matter how many years in a row I mailed my letter to Santa, c/o WJBF-TV Augusta, Georgia, he never got around to reading it during one of his many visits to the Trooper Terry Show, which aired each weekday afternoon (complete with a magic viewing screen).
One wintry afternoon after school, as I lay on my stomach with the Sears Wish Book spread out next to the pad of paper I’d written/scratched out/written on, I had a sudden revelation: why did Santa have a $30 limit? If there really was a Santa, would he need such a limit? I jumped up, ran to the back of the house where my mother was cleaning one of the bathrooms, and asked the question whose answer changes everything magical about childhood, if so allowed. “Mother, if there really is a Santa,”I asked, keeping my eyes on hers, “and he really makes toys at the North Pole, why is there a Sears Wish Book and why do we get a $30 spending limit?” My mother stood straight, her mouth forming a thin line. “Don’t tell your brother,” was her answer.
This was perfect, of course. She neither confirmed nor denied the existence of Santa Claus. And so, for me, he really is still out there somewhere in a land called The North Pole. His $30 limit has increased (boy has it!), but he is still wonderful and jolly and he still brings happiness to children around the world, with a little bit of help from parents and grandparents. What has changed, however, is that his elves are moonlighting at Amazon.