A Christmas Excerpt...Touring with Santa

It was the Friday night before Christmas, a crisp starlit evening. We were cruising the township roadways with Santa Claus on the rescue. It was an annual event, much enjoyed by many of the smaller members of the community and, truth be told, by many of the bigger ones as well.

The lights were flashing, the siren screaming, the air horn blasting and regular sounds of “Ho Ho Ho” were echoing in the night air from behind me. I rode the officer’s seat in the cab, just enjoying the atmosphere and the smiling children we encountered on our slow tour. My fun was broken by a radio call.

 “Comm Center to Chief 36,” the radio query came. After I responded, the dispatcher asked, “You wouldn’t happen to be out with Santa Claus by chance, would you, Chief?”

“Affirmative,” I answered.

“Can you call in by phone?” the dispatcher asked. 

I didn’t have a good feeling as I reached for the cell phone mounted on the dash. Was some scrooge upset by the siren noise, I wondered. When I got the dispatcher on the line, it was nothing like that.

“Hey, Chief, we just had a call from a grandma on Greenfield Road. She was upset ‘cause she had been out when you went by and her grandchildren just missed Santa.”

"Please tell me she didn’t call in on 911?” I asked the dispatcher, almost dreading his response. The 911 emergency line is certainly not the proper method to obtain a visit by Santa Claus.

“Oh yeah, she did,” he said with a laugh.

“Sorry about that, we’ll take another run down that road.” We have to take care of a grandma like that, I thought to myself.

“Thanks, Chief, and Merry Christmas,” the dispatcher answered, as we both disconnected the line. 

 

 

Some Assembly Required....

Christmas was always special when I was growing up. We were up before dawn to see what Santa had brought. I was a true believer. One year I had even heard the hooves of the reindeer tapping on the roof of our house while Santa was making his delivery.

One year, one of the presents I was getting was a multiple level gas station, parking garage type structure, in which you could drive and park and pretend to work on, your match box cars. My sister was receiving something called the Imagination doll house. Both were “some assembly required,” and apparently had somewhere in excess of a gazillion pieces.

My sister and I were in bed, sound asleep, which we knew was important, ‘cause Santa wouldn’t come if you were awake. Mom and Dad were getting out the hidden presents and the toys which needed assembly when the Grinch decided to pay a visit in the form of a house fire. The Plectron, the “pager” of those days, went off, and so did Dad into the night, leaving Mom to complete the present distribution, and more importantly, the toy assembly.

Dad did make it back before we woke up to greet Christmas morning, but just barely. As usual we were wide eyed and thrilled with everything Santa had brought. Mom and Dad were not; both a bit blurry eyed from lack of sleep.

Years later, after the Santa years, Mom would regularly retell the story of that Christmas Eve, and have us in stitches as she described the “millions of pieces necessary” to complete the assembly of the toys that year. She stayed up all night, the elf completing Santa’s work.