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Bobbed and balanced halfway in the air between where I was and where I ultimately would be, levitated and lingered an illuminated sight.  Seemingly held and hoisted by my focused squinting laid a star like image that floated over the town where my belief was born.   “Do you see it?” Dad inquired from the driver’s seat as he shared a glance with Mom.  I nodded, but verbal confirmation was needed and Mom asked, “Well, what is it?”  My tongue, numb from countless glasses of cherry pop and coupled with being awestruck, stuttered and stammered, “It’s… It’s…  Santa.”  At that very moment a passing car’s headlights framed and froze my dad’s face.  For mere seconds a look of absolute pride projected from my father’s face as he affirmed my proclamation with, “That’s right, buddy.”   

 

Sandwiched in the middle of the 1980s my thirty-three-page Christmas short story had only an introduction.  There wasn’t yet tradition…  There weren’t expectations…  Every moment was as new as a post-snow dawn.  There were vague recollections of colorful packages and bright lights from previous years, but the understanding was never there.  My belief came to surface on that car ride late one Christmas Eve. 

 

 Only once has perfection ever been realized, but every year Christmas was as close to perfect as one could humanly reach.  Smiles surrender to the lips, but there was a seasonal smile that started from my socks then surged and splashed to my soul.   My parents made immaculate efforts to make each year a little more special than the last.  I don’t know how they managed, but some way, somehow, they always did. The buildup traveled with decoration, admiration, and dedication.  A season that was trumpeted in with static filled Christmas carol play back that harmonized with laughter over an answer machine tape from the inhabitants of my Christmas Eve House.  The holiday gauntlet was thrown, and our season began.  Within weeks we were pulling into the drive way on Briar Valley to only back right back out.  The race to get the perfect tree was a foot.  Essentially, we were engaged in a Cannonball Run that raced from October to January that was bookended by the Carol Call to the New Year’s Eve Pinochle game.  

 

Decoration was the Christmas Star that navigated Fall into Christmas.  My parents had an unspoken goal of ordaining all viewable spaces of their house to be Christmas.  Inside and outside Santas and snowmen solemnly stood guard protecting the sensitive beliefs of those inside the structure.  Thirty years ago, public places and stores were also more devoted to displaying their dedication to the day.  Shopping trips were events and adventures that were often pleasantly paused to adore the welcoming warmth of artistic illuminated displays.  Through it all the crackling hum of cassette carols and the weight of heavy jackets, we were together more than we were apart. 

 

Mom and Dad were the shepherds to my Christmas, but if my feelings started at my feet than the shoes that carried it from one generation to the next was my Aunt Linda.  She was the 12-14-year-old knockaround “tennies” that were always there when needed and just felt right.  During the 1960s, ready or not, Aunt Linda shouldered Christmas and began to put her potpourri loving, sled riding, Tootsie Roll Chapstick and Black Jack gum sharing, stamp on an evolving tradition.  By the time I rolled around Christmas Eve had become a living, breathing extension of my family.  The humble house that hosted transformed for one night into a venue fit for a king.   

 

 Separately I had already begun to build two very different houses that would encompass the very fabric of my Christmas composition.  The first home was more of the physical variety with an address on Briar Valley Road.  Nestled and hugged between two ridges the home was blanketed and isolated by the slow crawl of early winter dusk.  If I had been particularly well behaved on a given year I was rewarded with a white canvas of snow that highlighted the pulsing plethora of lights that protected the perimeter.  That first year of coherence I stared out the frozen panel of my aunt and uncle’s living room window.  Multicolored lights framed the perimeter as crystalized condensation weaved the vivid colors into a kaleidoscope curtain.  Ricocheting illumination from passing traffic paint brushed the iced pond that caromed silhouetted shadows of shelved Santas behind me.   Partnering with the warm wafts of baking ham, my aunt’s laughter (the soundtrack to my Christmas) reverbed from the kitchen and pulsed and vibrated the panel into tears of joy.   My reflection engaged me in a staring contest that would judge to a draw, but somewhere between the blinks a coherent comprehension began to materialize.  My previous recollections were underwater with blurred images and an echoed understanding.   The mirrored self-image urged me to remember this moment.   I knew that this was something worth remembering.  

 

That “something” was my everything and each year I’d inventory every aspect and moment of the evening.  The very birth of the evening saw my family raiding baked goods, veggie trays and salty snacks like raccoons that got into the trash.  (Eating like we didn’t know where our next meal would come from.)  Then I would listen to Dad and Uncle Harry debate local and national sports as Mom and Aunt Linda took turns trying to out laugh one another.  My sisters and my cousin would half-heartedly compete in board and card games as I annually declined invitations to participate.  My attention was fairly split between remembering favorite decorations and introducing myself to new ones.  Eventually my eyes would steer to the Christmas Special-like quality of wrapped presents, that only my Aunt Linda could do, that acted as a radiant foundation to the tree that swallowed the living room.  Wild inferences of musical instruments (that I couldn’t play) or irrational thoughts of power tools or hunting rifles were the answers I’d pepper out to questions of “What do you think you got?” 

 

What I got….  Well, what I got was some of the best memories of my childhood.  The adults would playfully stall and stumble after the meal delaying the opening of gifts.  Boy, I didn’t mind, because I didn’t want the night to end.  Eventually we would open gifts, that were almost always Penn State and Steeler related, and then patiently wait for my Aunt Linda (who always seemed to delay her gratification the longest) to finish opening her assorted angel knick knacks.  By then it was late, later than my youngest sister and I would stay up all year, so it was time to change into our pajamas.  (Pajamas that also double as adult sized t-shirts from the grocery store my aunt worked at.  The very same store where she chased me up and down aisles trying to give me a kiss on the cheek, but always treated me with a cookie from the in store bakery.)  We’d never fall asleep there, but it was guaranteed to happen on the drive home.  The pajamas trumpeted the inevitable end of the night.   

 

Dad and Uncle Harry would load and start the family car.  If any snow had allotted Uncle Harry would pull out whatever new snow removing gadget he had dug up that year and try to “infomercial” the tool to my dad.  After rounds of hugs and kisses in the crowded kitchen my immediate family would make our way to the preheated car.  My uncle, aunt and cousin would follow to wish us a more formal goodbye in the driveway.  The goodbyes were extended by Uncle Harry “selling” his newest flashlight or headlamp to my dad, earlier debate rebuttals and Aunt Linda or my cousin having to run in to “tinkle’ (we were told not to leave until they came back), but point blank… They didn’t want us to leave and we sure didn’t want to say goodbye.  This house was where my Christmas was, and home is the place that you have the hardest time leaving. 

 

Mile and minutes later our caravan of Christmas cheer would crest a hill that almost was a mountain and descended toward the town I grew up above.  Dad and Mom would make sure that whoever they could wake up was up (I always woke up  from the weary weld and inwardly scolded myself to submit to sleep) and point to the sky.   That was where the apparition would appear five times.  Same spot, same night and roughly the same time, Santa waited to welcome Christmas day to my family.  Then there came a year where as sudden as it surprised, Santa vanished from the sky.  

 

I didn’t believe anymore.  That was the only logical explanation as to the absence of this annual appearance.  The fiery flight was fueled by what I no longer believed to be feasible.  Age and circumstance prodded and poked an already questioned belief.   A worldly elementary peer speared the final blow that would close the eyes of a persecuted appreciation.   My second Christmas house still stood, but was left dim, alone, and derelict.   Year after year six cold, dark December evenings reminded me of the guilt of my new convictions.    

 

Each year I stumbled further away from the memory of the magic that melted the murkiness of the sky.  Granted, the season was still beyond special, but I no longer had the belief to hold my hand and hurry me through the clouds of anxiety and anticipation of December.    Details and images of that early magic were replaced with sport statistics, sentence diagramming and television theme songs and I started to wonder if it was an elaborate dream.   Then there was a Christmas Eve, where fueled by early adolescence and caffeine, I was still awake on the way home from Briar Valley.  A night where it wasn’t quite cold enough for snow, but wet enough to create a thick fog outside that coupled with the moisture of our voices inside the sedan.  Then to my left, at the foot of the hill that wasn’t quite a mountain, bright lights sprayed like a fountain through the dense mist.  I attacked the window with the sleeve of a pullover sports jacket rubbing and wiping for clarity.   Blinking and shaking the confusion from my eyes and mind and contorting my neck to unnatural angles I finally deciphered the unbelievable…  It was Santa. 

 

Dad, concentrating on cutting through the blanket of vapor, continued to steer the car as it slowly chased its low beams while mom, navigating from the passenger seat, helped to map yellow from while lines; both were oblivious to the miracle that just occurred.   At the top of the hill the wet window lost its battle to ice and my eyes, exhausted from the unexpected excitement almost a hundred yards below, surrendered to sleep (joining my already slumbering younger sister) and what seemed like only seconds later the dome light awoke me in our driveway.  Dad, reading my mind, said, “We’ll unload the car in the morning.”  At that moment his statement was the greatest gift of all and I shuffled and staggered inside to fall victim yet again to another comatose like sleep all but forgetting about what I had witnessed earlier.   

 

The intoxicating delirium that is Christmas morning forgave and forgot the uncertainty of the previous evening.  It wasn’t until the procrastinated chore of unloading the cargo of Christmas Eve from the car that I remembered what I had witnessed.  I immediately went to the window of the door at which I sat to scan for evidence of that moment.  There smudged and stained was the smear from my jacket creating a lake like image that tunneled back six years to childish beliefs and wonders.  I froze with my hands on my head exhaling a ghostly breath that swirled and floated into the harsh mountain morning air.  My investigation and eventual conclusion were interrupted by my mom’s voice.   

 

“We didn’t get the paper yesterday, walk out to the box and check if it’s there.”   The county paper ran a Christmas Eve edition that wove stories of fantastic traditions and happenings throughout Bedford.  It was a piece to the landscape puzzle that was my Christmas, so I danced to the red paper box.  As I was fiercely skipping back to the house an image on the front page caught my eye and scattered my puzzle pieces.  There flying high on a hill, the backdrop from last evenings marvel, was a metal ornamented Santa and three welded reindeer.  I quickly scanned and skimmed the article absorbing my folly.  I had been duped.   

 

A local car dealer at the base of the hill had spent time and money to resurrect a town tradition that had long been lost.  The businessman had discovered a steel Santa and one reindeer lofted on telephone poles on the other side of the hill.  Abandoned and forgotten left to suffer attacks and the subjection of the pokes and prods of seasonal elements, because time had taken away its creator.  There it hung, hanging from the very wood that had once held my belief captive each Christmas Eve, but now weakened with rust and holes.   With permission the car dealer brought the lighted coupling down the hill and set to restore the lighted glory that they once radiated.  Adding more illumination and two additional reindeer (even one with a red nose) he placed the resurrected tradition on poles on the hill behind his dealership.  Then according to the article, the plan was to light it again for the first time in six years this coming Christmas Eve.  Christmas Eve… as in last night. 

 

The first couple Christmas Eves after this revelation my eyes diverted from the hilled halos out of embarrassment, but eventually I began to seek the decoration out with admiration.   The magic of believing was missed while the setting and characters to my Christmas began to change, but the love and appreciation continued to grow.   Christmas eventually took on a whole new meaning when I had my son.   

 

Thirty-three years of celebrating had been practice and drill for my son’s first coherent Christmas.  As my sedan descended the hill that wasn’t quite a mountain, traveling away from the town I grew up above, I nudged my wife in the passenger seat and we both called out to our three-year-old son. Pointing and urging his attention to the side of the hill I could barely contain my excitement as I asked, “Can you see it?”  His head nodded as it was spotlighted by a passing beam and my wife beckoned, “Well, what is it?”  He focused on his words and replied, “It’s… It’s… Santa.”  Then just like that I finally understood Christmas.  The belief was reborn, and I understood just how much a father could love his son.

 

Christmas is a special time where wonder and joy fill the air, but you shouldn’t have to wonder what’s in your water.   Hosting this Christmas Season?  Well, then you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you and the last thing you want to worry about is if your home’s water is up to the quality that your guests deserve.  Call NEGLEY’S WATER at 1-888-458-2118 to Feel Better About Your Water and give your holiday company and yourself the gift of great water.  

 

Holidays are expensive and water treatment probably isn’t on that budget, but the water analysis and consultation are.  It’s free.  Just call 1-888-458-2118 or visit us on the web at negleyswater.com to start the process of Feeling Better About Your Water.  NEGLEY’S WATER also offers third-party financing, because you shouldn’t have to wait until after the holidays to Feel Better About Your Water. Merry Christmas from your local water expert.