|
By David McGrath
When I saw a trailer for the film Bad Santa,
in which a department-store
Santa Claus screeches at a child and his elf sexually
demeans
the store's head of security, I thought,
someone finally got it right.
I'm clearly in the minority. The movie has
sparked criticism and protests
from Los Angeles to London. Parents are angry
that their children are being
exposed to R-rated advertising profaning the
beloved Christmas hero.
Conservative groups and the religious right
are accusing Disney of
indecency and hypocrisy for backing a movie
with a philandering, dishonest,
and immoral Saint Nick.
But when my five brothers, two sisters, five
cousins, and I were growing up
in the late 50s and early 60s on Chicago's
south side we knew Santa Claus
as a lean, ugly, stern, hard-drinking
taskmaster who demanded deference and
obedience in exchange for toys. For us, the
jolly, rotund Santas on the
Andy Williams TV Christmas special or in the
State Street parade were
little more than cartoonish frauds-fine for
storybooks and Salvation Army
bell ringers.
Our Santa showed up around 9 PM on Christmas
Eve. For two hours we kids had
sat waiting-uncharacteristically still, our
hands folded, the candy dish on
the table untouched, our eyes bulging whenever
Uncle Don strode to the
window and parted the curtains for a peek
outside. When the doorbell rang a
staccato six or seven times we felt both
relief and terror.
Home movies from the time show the fear and
determination in our faces as
we watched Santa enter-a thin, ugly man with a
stained blue and pink burlap
Santa mask to which was pinned a flattened
cotton beard. Mostly we kept our
eyes glued to the thick black leather belt
doubled up in his hand, which he
raised above his head in a threatening gesture
and not infrequently used to
whip the backsides of the older boys if they
faltered under interrogation.
"Have you been good?" I remember him
asking me when I was six.
"Yes, Santa."
Whack! "Don't lie. You fight with your
brothers." Whack!
"I'll be good, Santa."
"Promise?"
Then Santa would shove into my chest a
festively wrapped box that was still
cold. I'd return to my spot across the room
and triumphantly start opening
my gift, ready when he called me up for a
second gift to kneel, pray the
Hail Mary out loud, sing a carol, or take
however many more whacks on the
backside were required to collect a Tonka
truck, a Fort Apache construction
kit, or a Fanner 50 cap gun.
We kids all thought it was a more than fair
exchange. We also thought it
was normal. We knew department-store Santas
always asked if kids had been
good, and we'd heard the song that went
"You better watch out, you better
not cry." How were we to know we were the
only household on the block where
the children actually suffered the
consequences of not heeding the warning?
The adults also participated. Uncle Eddie
would usually have drunk a good
portion of his Christmas bonus at Marie Shaw's
tavern that afternoon, and
he'd egg Santa on. "Oh, Santa, Jimmy
smokes cigarettes behind the bank,"
he'd shout, referring to my older brother.
Whack!
"Patrick says naughty words, Santa."
Whack!
Santa wasn't above giving a few belts to the
adults. Uncle Eddie would go
up for a gift and kneel penitently in front of
the seated Santa.
"Eddie was at a saloon for three hours
today, Santa," his brother, Uncle
Don, would say.
Before Santa could administer any lashes Uncle
Eddie would whimper and
plead, "I'm a good boy, Santa." Then
he'd fold his hands in prayer and sing
a verse from "Silent Night."
The other grown-ups would laugh, shaking their
heads and roaring out other
misdeeds. We kids stared, mesmerized by this
surreal humiliation of our
elders.
One bitterly cold and snowy Christmas Eve when
I was around ten Santa
showed up without his belt, gripping a
half-full fifth of Wild Turkey.
Uncle Eddie quickly relieved him of the bottle
and gave him his own brown
leather belt. By this time some of us were
getting skeptical of the Santa
Claus business, but we were fearfully
respectful when we later asked our
parents about the Wild Turkey. My father said
it had been a gift for Uncle
Eddie that had somehow been spilled during the
sleigh ride.
Santa didn't beat the young children or the
babies or my sisters, though
they had to watch us getting whipped. The
little kids took turns sitting on
his lap and listening to his whiskey-drenched
cooing, but they seldom
complied when their mothers, wielding cameras,
urged them to kiss Santa's
cheek.
The visits lasted little more than half an
hour. Uncle Don or my father
would suddenly command us to sing "Jingle
Bells," and Santa would wave and
leave the house. Then the grown-ups would pass
out the rest of the
presents, and we would open them, exulting
that we wouldn't have to face
Santa again until the next Christmas Eve.
But sometimes in the middle of summer, when a
rainy day had confined all of
us indoors and we were cranky and fighting,
there'd be a sudden pounding on
the basement door. One of us would open the
door to reveal Santa-shorter,
the height of my mother, and much angrier.
He'd step into the room,
flailing the leather strap, inflicting several
lashes on whoever'd been
making the most trouble.
Even after I was past the age of believing,
things didn't change much at
Christmastime. My brothers and I simply
switched from frightened victims to
coconspirators. As noisy, gawky teenagers we
joined the adults in inciting
Santa or hamming it up as the remorseful
accused at Santa's feet.
When I turned 18 and was six feet tall I
became Santa. At 8:45 PM on
Christmas Eve my sisters helped me put on the
Santa suit in my parents'
bedroom. They stuffed a pillow under my shirt
and made sure my neck and
ears were hidden beneath the burlap mask. They
pulled on the red hat,
nearly covering my eyes, and then Jimmy led me
outside, through the
gangway, and up to the front door. As I leaned
on the doorbell to announce
my arrival he handed me the leather belt. A
nd I took it. I brandished it. Once inside, I
even used it several times,
though mostly for show.
The following year the next younger brother in
line played Santa Claus, the
year after that the next brother. Uncle Don
died. Uncle Eddie had to stop
drinking. He got quieter but could still be
counted on to say something
needling when Jimmy's or Pat's name was
called. My brothers and cousins
made a racket as they exhorted Santa Claus to
use his strap and indicted
each other for new forms of bad behavior.
"Jimmy hunts women on Rush
Street, Santa!"
The ritual didn't end until my older two
brothers got married and had their
own children. Their wives were aghast when
they heard we wanted to carry on
the tradition. We assured them that Santa's
lashes were in good fun and
didn't do real physical harm. They said that
if we showed up with a belt
we'd never see the children on Christmas Eve
again.
How could we argue? The leather belt was
retired, and a new, handsome Santa
costume was bought. A jolly Santa began
handing out presents. The scary
Christmas Eve was obsolete, relegated to
family legend. i
|