Expanation of a Celebration

WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS NEXT POST IF YOU ARE UNDER THE AGE OF 10…OR 13 IF YOUR PARENTS ARE OVERBEARING AND WANT TO KEEP YOU AS A CHILD FOREVER. OR IF YOU CAN’T FACE REALITY AND HAVE TROUBLE ACCEPTING LITTLE FACTS OF LIFE AS THEY COME AT YOU! SERIOUSLY!!
Santa isn’t real. Everyone realizes this at one point or another and (though it might take time, and years of expensive counseling) they eventually forgive their parents for lying to them about the one thing that made childhood remotely bearable since the day they were born. Tonight I attempted to explain to my Kyrgyz family what Santa is and how he relates to Christmas.
Quick note: I’m not even going to remotely try to explain to them the story of the three old dudes who found a baby in a desert who grew up to do some magic tricks and died a terrible death…no, there’s not enough time in the world to explain that one considering how difficult my retelling of the Christmas story from the north pole went! But I digress.
I began with the basics: He lives in a huge castle in the North Pole and has little people who wear green costumes working for him. Okay. Then I explained how he wears a red suit, has a white beard and is really fat. Okay, they’re actually still with me at this point. Then I explained that he has eight flying reindeer (‘reindeer’ isn’t in my dictionary so I had to act it out…it was about as funny as it sounds:)) who take him to every house in the world in the course of one night to deliver exactly whatever present(s) that particular child wants. At this point they’re all nodding in agreement and saying, ‘hmmm, this Santa fellow seems like a really nice guy’. I then proceeded to explain how every child leaves out a glass of milk, a couple of cookies, and a carrot or two…
quick note: no one ever leaves eight carrots, has anyone ever thought about how cruel that is…we’re assuming Rudolph is the lucky bastard that gets the one carrot that is left out, if one is at all, and the others are forced to fly behind the gastronomically satisfied little bastard rubbing it all in their face with a bright red nose to cap it all off. Really, first we lie to our children from an early age which probably only serves to propagate the plentiful nightmares the proportionately peculiar youth already have to put up with, but now we’re also saying that it’s okay to choose favorites on the one night of the year we should all be considering selflessness! Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to lie my ass of when I have kids…I just think it’s an interesting point. But again, I digress.
The point in my story telling that really gets my family confused is when I tell them that Santa enters and leaves every house on his journey via their fireplace. Then, in all honesty, my Apa speaks up and says (in Kyrgyz, of course) “Doesn’t his suit get dirty?” I laugh, and say “of course not, he’s Santa!” My Ata ponders this for a minute then he asks “so after he distributes the presents and somehow doesn’t get their house dirty with soot on his black boots, he climbs back up the chimney staying clean the whole time!?” Again I stifle laughter as I reply “no, he wiggles his nose and shoots up the chimney like magic!” Now my family is roaring with laughter and they’re saying ‘oh, you’re making this all up, there is no Santa Clause!’ As if the flying reindeer weren’t clue enough, right? It then takes me the better part of an hour to explain to them in great deal how Christmas really works, ie. Kids make a list, give it to their parents who promise to ‘send’ it to Santa, then they buy presents, hide them in the house until Christmas when they finally take them out and lead their children to believe that it was actually a mystical fat gentleman in a terribly tailored suit that generously procured their various enjoyment instigators until next season. To which my host sister replies “so…parents lie to their children!?” Then my whole family starts giving me looks like, ‘wow, maybe America isn’t so great after all…’
There you have it. I’m just here spinning elaborate tales that evidently do little more than highlight all Americans’ natural talent for deceit. Oh, I also teach English.