Jolly Old St. Nicholas

Last night was our ward Christmas party. We were told over the pulpit to come in our pajamas, but most of the adults didn't. Sinners.

Anyway, we had the usual dinner, then the Taylorsville Madrigals came and did their program. I mouthed the words to a lot of the songs, but there were a couple new ones I didn't know, too. And then Santa came.

After the party was over, I felt a twinge of wrongness about the Santa thing. Every so often the idea of having such big institutionalized lies bothers me a little. Especially when it's supported at church. But at the same time, I think that Santa and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy bring a lot of fun to childhood, and will probably do them for my own children.

And then I remembered something else that has bothered me about Santa. The gift requests. No, not the making of the requests. But that you write a big letter to Santa telling him everything you want for Christmas, but then when you sit on his knee at the mall or at the ward Christmas party, he asks you what you want. Shouldn't he know from the letter? I'm not sure when I first thought of this, but I'm pretty sure at least once I purposefully told him something I left off of my letter to keep from being redundant.

More recently, though, I've felt like the child in the song Jolly Old St. Nicholas, who says in the last line, "Choose for me, dear Santa Claus, what you think is best." I don't really have a lot of real material desires. Sure, I enjoy new books and movies, but I have a library card that serves me very well. And I can listen to music online. And a lot of the time, I don't even remember what it was that looked good by the time my birthday or Christmas comes around. So I eventually created a file on my computer to list things I liked, so I could later pull from that list to make my gift request lists and give my family something to work with.

There are a couple things that have been in my letters for Santa for a very long time out of tradition. I've been asking for a Gameboy since I was about six, and don't intend to stop. And I've been requesting a tiger for a few years now. This year, I'm adding a sonic screwdriver. And it just may become one of those traditional items. But maybe not.