Fred Wemyss

I never write about Christmas and only once before have I written without trying to create a paragraph. Since I can't get this journal service to allow me to indent, my paragraphs are created by my placing spaces between blocks of prose. But, to my thinking, a paragraph needs indenting if it is to have the look of a literary effort. So, my Christmas gift to the global community of Fred fans is the presentation of another entry in a block form which bears no resemblance to the paragraphs I was taught existed. Allow me to change the subject without indenting first! When I was seven, my brothers and I went downstairs at four in the morning to see if Santa Claus was dropping off our presents. We'd been sitting on the steps for an hour and finally my oldest brother, Frank (who certainly knew Santa was not a person, but an idea, but who also knew not to open the living room door until many hours after my parents had gone to bed) said to my middle brother, Bob and me, "Come on." We tiptoed down to the living room. Frank slowly turned the door knob and we sent to the fireplace. The stockings were hanging there, containing various toys and candy canes. Frank quietly flicked the switch controlling the overhead light. I grabbed my stocking from a hook above the fireplace. The little bells attached to the plastic holly jingled. I removed a little figure which stood on a semi-circular stick and began balancing it on a grooved support designed for the purpose. How Santa had stuffed the thing in the little stocking was a miracle I couldn't absorb. "God damn it to Hell," said a voice. It was not a jovial bass voice, of the sort a fat, flying philanthropist in red felt and ermine might have. It was a high, unjovial voice I knew to be my mother's. This was a voice she reserved especially for holidays. "Do you know what time it is?" my mother said. "Seven?" said Frank. "Take another guess," said my mother. "Six-thirty," said Frank. "It's four o'clock, for crying out loud. Go back to bed." "We didn't know," said Frank. "The Hell you didn't," said my mother, "Do you think your father and I want to stand here at four in the morning while you rip open all your presents when we're half-asleep? We just went to bed." "We could open them while you slept," said Frank. "Goddamn it, get upstairs, all of you. You can sit on the steps for another three hours if you want but you're not going to go through everything we wrapped before we're even downstairs. Go back upstairs now!" "But I want to see Santa Claus," I said. "What did I just say?" said my mother. Frank and Bob and I began running out of the living room and up the steps. "Jesus Christ!" my mother said. My brothers and I sat on the steps for the three ensuing hours. We were on the steps leading to the third floor, one landing up from my parents' room, and this staircase had a door. We were sitting on the bottom step with the tips of our toes touching the back of the door, just as we had been sitting before we went down. At six-fifty-nine a soft voice which I recognized as my mother's relaxed voice said, "Okay, boys! Christmas." Downstairs we went and, somehow, in front of each stocking, a little foam rubber face, one a clown's, one a drunk's and one an indian's, had been placed. I got the drunk's face. It was a little puppet. I put my fingers in the holes in the back of the face and made the face collapse, project and otherwise look as if it were having a grand old time, with its bowler hat and bright red cheeks. I was sure Santa Claus has put the faces there after my mother had made us go back upstairs. Later that morning, when my grandmother and aunt had arrived, I asked them and my parents why the little man on the semicircular stick with the grooved support had "Made In Japan" written on him if Santa had dropped him off. My mother explained that Santa only had enough elves to make so many toys. He had to order the rest from actual toy manufacturers. I admired this capitalism on Santa's part. I said "Oh!" Little did I know that at four o'clock that morning I'd actually heard Santa shouting "God damn it to Hell! Get back upstairs!"