Hartley Neita, Contributor
WHEN I was a child we did not have a Christmas Tree at our home in the country.
There was no electricity in our neck of the woods and so we could not string pepper lights on the branches of a Christmas Tree; and, as you know, without lights a Christmas Tree is just a limb with branches and leaves.
We had a gramophone at our house and 78 rpm records of Christmas hymns and carols.
The hymns were Hark The Herald Angels Sing and Oh Holy Night by English choirs, and the carols were Silent Night and White Christmas sung by Bing Crosby and other singers like Dick Haymes, Dinah Shore and Jo Stafford.
We only had two village shops in the district. Neither ever had a Santa Claus sitting in his sleigh and handing Christmas gifts to us.
So we never saw a Santa in person. We only saw his picture in the Daily Gleaner, the Jamaica Standard, Jamaica Times and Public Opinion newspapers.
We knew, of course, all about Santa. He was a fat, jolly man with a long white beard, who lived at the North Pole all year.
Then on Christmas Eve he was whizzed all over the world by reindeers pulling his sleigh which was full of gifts for children who were good.
So to make sure we got nice gifts we wrote him a letter promising to be well-behaved and gave it to our father to post.
Every Christmas Eve, our mother placed a stocking on our pillows. We tried to keep awake because we wanted to see Santa. We rubbed our eyes and yawned, rubbed and yawned but always fell asleep.
The roosters in our village crowed us awake before dawn. We were then just three, a sister, a brother, and I, and, sure enough, Santa thought us to be good and filled our stockings.
My sister got a doll every year, but it was too big and could never hold in the stocking.
But inside her stocking were socks and extra dresses for her doll, a mini crockery set, jacks and Shirley Temple comic books.
We boys got cork guns and mouth organs, and Green Arrow, Flash and Superman comics. We loved Santa because he gave us fun things.
Our parents gave us mundane things like shoes and shirts, and when we grew older we got neckties.
On a scale of one to 10, Santa was, therefore, rated 10. Our parents got a lower rating.
I don't know when we lost our innocence and began to question the reality of Santa.
Perhaps it was at the same time we discovered that a man and a woman who could sing like Crosby or Dinah Shore, were not living inside our gramophone.
But the image of Santa Claus as one who rewards those of us who are kind and good and polite and loving, has remained in our minds as the symbol of what Christmas should be.
And what I love most about Santa is that he has never in all the years I have known him left an envelope in my mailbox asking for a Christmas donation.
