Posted Sexy Scholar blog article: Beyond the Pages: Exploring the...
Santa in Atlanta
Some might say the holidays are full of tales untrue
There’s Santa Claus, Jack the Frost, and good old Frosty, too
I don’t know about Jack or Frosty, but I have to vouch for Santa.
I saw the fat man, white beard and all, in the foothills near Atlanta
I was six years old, and Christmas Eve was disappointment and dread.
Tomorrow most kids would have shiny new toys. And we kids all shared a bed.
We were dirt poor, wrong side of the tracks, my two brothers and me.
With hardly a dream and empty pockets, we didn’t even have a tree.
Not yet asleep, I heard Dad tell Mom he was off on a ride
He’d be back quick, don’t worry, the weather was on his side.
She asked him Why? He just chuckled and then
I heard him say he was ‘heading north to see Saint Nick, his friend’.
Well, I was upset. I didn’t even know why.
I was mad at him jok’n. We were barely gett’n by.
There was no holiday money, none to spare.
And truth be told my mom and dad played things low and promised us more next year.
We didn’t decorate and got no fancy food.
And I thought the deal was done, so his joke caught me as rude.
I snuck out my window, climbed into his truck,
and hid behind the seat, hop’n he’d miss me with any luck.
At first the ride was smooth then turned into a climb,
It soon got bumpy, stopping short in the copse of some pines.
I peek out the window just as we arrived,
It was dark, it was cold, and Jack Frost froze my nose alive.
Dad put the truck in park, the white snow falling down.
It got quiet, I heard my own breath; I wanted to be back in town.
Out in the middle of nowhere, I thought this joke’s all a bluff.
But I heard someone in the night and almost upchucked.
A man’s voice called a greeting, a stranger way out here.
“Nicholas Claus, as I live and breathe,” Daddy shouted in my ear.
I climbed out of the cab and ignored my cold feet.
There was him, tall and heavy, shaking hands as they greet.
A red jacket, a white beard, and a long axe at his side,
His black boots were quite high, I looked around for his ride.
I thought I saw a brown shadow hiding deep in the trees.
It stood eating high-up holly, you know, with those shiny green leaves.
I still didn’t believe it, but the truth is hard to fake.
With one swipe of his axe, a tree fell to its fate.
“I sure thank you, so much,” Dad said, as I watched.
That stranger, with a grunt, tossed it into the truck, at no cost.
“Make sure you tell the boys ill be stopp’n by soon.
And I spect they’ll be git’n into bed before I do”.
Dad laughed at the joke cause everyone knows
Santa works through the night. But I shivered in my clothes.
I hid still in the cab as we turned to go home.
And I heard him yell out in the night, in the cold.
“Merry Christmas to y’all and enjoy the new year.
It looks like it might snow in a few. Hope that tree brings some cheer.”
It was just a small tree, but mom strung popcorn and ribbons.
And by morning, Christmas wasn’t far off from Dickens.
At its base, I found a carved horse or a deer, I ‘twert sure,
But I still have it today, from old Santas visit there.
So before you go tell’n yorn kids, he ain’t real.
I’ll bet you a dollar I can prove it still.
Just look at the kids gathered around that old tree.
Picture them dreaming of more, just like me.