Peering over the chipped and faded balusters surrounding the loose floorboards of a Victorian sitting porch stands a forty-six-inch-high plastic Santa Claus.
This particular Saint Nick was picked up on a whim during a late fall shopping trip to Sears and Roebuck in 1968. His bright blue eyes have seen plenty of cheer from his holiday season vantage point overlooking the corner of Lincoln Street and Farrington Avenue.
The jolly elf had missed the view during the Christmas of 1971. Ruth could not stand to be by herself and drove the Impala north to Benedicta. She wanted to be with her mother and father.
Plugging in Santa’s internal electric lightbulb was a moment to savor only with her husband, Benjamin. He was probably—at that very moment—slogging through the mud in southeast Asia.
For some reason, the view of the snow-covered boulders that make up Mt. Katahdin calmed her constant fear for his safety. Ben had proposed to her on her farmhouse porch. The formidable and miles-distant Mt. Katahdin was an unapologetic witness to the whole event.
They celebrated the bliss with biscuits, woodstove-simmered baked beans, and, of course, red hot dogs.
The young couple had climbed the mountain on their honeymoon while on a camping trip at Daicy Pond. Ben claimed he could see her parents sitting on their porch—in Benedicta— from the summit. She knew that this was not true, but the memory of his voice warmed her as the icy Aroostook County winds burned the rose color into her pale and tear-stained cheeks. She stayed at the farm through the first week of the New Year.
Plastic Santa stayed in their attic that winter. He missed the sounds of singing, the clanging of baking pans, and, of course, the voices he had come to know as a comfort to his hollow soul when they echoed upward from the floors below.
Tucked away under an eave, he never said a word; Santa understood, silently. Somehow, he knew there would be better days ahead.
The pudgy representative of the Empire Plastic Corporation returned to the porch in late November of 1972, right after Thanksgiving; it was triumphant. His appearance mirrored the joyous return of Ben from Vietnam.
His now re-energized internal forty-watt bulb cast a warm glow across the lawn and to the frost-cracked sidewalk beyond. He could hear Bing Crosby belting out festive tunes from the newly purchased High-Fidelity Zenith positioned against the living room wall.
Melancholy songs were played often during Ben’s absence; this music was better.
Nineteen hundred and seventy-three was a good year for some, but even better for Ruth and Ben. The impending birth announcement came in the spring. There would be twins, and certainly more if the good Lord allowed.
Each and every Thanksgiving, the plastic Santa emerged with a little more paint missing from his molded sack of toys. His once bright red jacket gradually faded to pink, and his black belt became a mottled gray.
When his forty-watt heart was powered up, his twinkling blue eyes could be seen from far beyond the corner of Lincoln Street and Farrington Avenue. Even the neighbors remarked to Ruth and Ben—together and separately—that plastic Santa’s eyes were a welcome sight for anyone who strolled by their home.
Ben confided that he had recently upgraded the ancient forty-watt bulb to a “brandy-new” sixty-watt incandescent bulb. But, he agreed that plastic Santa’s eyes were especially cheery and bright.
On his yearly journey down from the attic, plastic Santa had taken a couple of tumbles. He recovered— admirably— never letting the jolts and bumps wipe the silly grin from his round bearded face. The kids had demanded that they carry Santa down the stairway. The subsequent pushing and pulling between the siblings led to many of the jolly elf’s unfortunate mishaps.
In 1979, Santa made the entire journey on his own without ever touching the stairs. After that, it was decided— in a family meeting— that his aging sense of balance was not to be tested again.
He had been teetered and tottered from the top rail of the banister too many times. Plastic Santa crashed to the birch and maple hardwood floor of the hallway below. Pride tends to go before a fall, but in this case, Santa’s protruding belly struck first. The dent was pushed out after he spent some time standing beside the cast-iron steam radiator in the living room. The heat was necessary to make him more pliable for the impromptu cosmetic surgery.
“Bumbles bounce, but Santa doesn’t,” was not a welcome comment from Daniel. Parental smirks were quickly disguised as scowls for the sake of family unity. Plastic Santa missed the meeting. He was watching over the corner of Lincoln and Farrington as the snow flurries, propelled by a north wind, swirled around his cheeks. He would have welcomed a chance to have input, but the last-minute gastric bypass made him far too sore to speak.
The Thanksgiving of 2013 was different. No one came to aid him on his journey down the stairs. Silently, Santa stood under the eaves expecting his ride to come.
Looking back—if a plastic Santa even has the ability to do so—he might have recalled that Ruth was thinner in 2012. She never came outside to plug in his sixty-watt lamp.
On his trip back up the stairs to the cold attic, he recalled that the decorations were not hung with the detail and attention that he had come to expect. The green and red garland that had always been lovingly wrapped around the handrail to the stairway was missing. He should have suspected something sooner.
There was a smoldering silence in the old Victorian. It was another clue that he must have missed during his standard spring & summer slumber. He was not jolted awake by visitors to the floors below, not even one time.
While he might have been cruelly described as a non-living, unknowing, and opaque Christmas representative from the Empire Plastic Corporation, it was clear to this plastic Santa that the situation was dire on the corner of Lincoln and Farrington.
All of those who might dismiss the views of the red-suited poseur would never know the situation within the house, simply because they would never take the time to ask. We all have a tendency to ignore the obvious, especially when it feels uncomfortable.
There are some things that even a blow-molded plastic Santa can do nothing about. He missed the internal light that warmed his hollow-body on cold winter nights. But, most of all, he missed his family. That, and his position overlooking the corner of Lincoln Street and Farrington Avenue.
The silent years seemed never-ending; spring and summer slumbers turned to long winter naps. The expected late autumn visitors (to his cramped and humble abode) never arrived.
In the fall of 2017, plastic Santa came to find himself in a cool basement. Wrapped in a sheet of soft plastic, his hearing was limited. His vision of the surroundings was non-existent. Of course, he was concerned. Things changed drastically since 1968. He had lost track of time since his separation from Ruth and Ben.
Time was lost. It was not because plastic Santa did not have a watch, clock, or calendar, but because—for a time—the memories were put on hold. Life comes with pauses that we do not control. Committing even the most insignificant moments to memory can sustain the most stoic of cynics. Maybe Santa himself.
The voices above him sounded familiar. He could hear clanging pans, singing, and pleasantly discussed disagreements; the basement was already far better accommodations than being stuck under drafty and silent eaves. Only one floor separated him from all of the action above.
“Daniel! Where is he?”
A feminine voice had a lilt that reminded him of someone else.
“I wrapped him in bubble wrap when we moved him down from the attic. He’s down in the basement.”
That was Daniel’s voice!
“Well, let’s get him out and put him on the porch! I didn’t fly here from Syracuse to see only you!”
It was Debbie! Of course, it was Debbie. Plastic Santa had missed Debbie; she was always the voice of reason. She spoke with the kind cadence of her mother.
“I was going to repaint his coat and his belt before we put him back outside. The kids have been hounding me to get it done. I haven’t had a moment since we moved in. Dad brought it up to me when we were at the veteran’s home this past Sunday.”
“Don’t you dare paint him! How could you do that?”
Debbie’s voice was soothing even when she was angry.
Daniel laughed. “Okay, okay. Let’s get the kids settled in for tonight. Tomorrow, after breakfast, we can put him out on the porch. I will let you plug in his light.”
“Yes, you will,” she said with fervor.
Peering over the chipped and faded balusters surrounding the loose floorboards of a Victorian sitting porch stands a forty-six-inch-high plastic Santa Claus.
This Saint Nick was picked up on a whim during a late fall shopping trip to Sears and Roebuck in 1968. His bright blue eyes had seen plenty of cheer, and some sadness, from his holiday season vantage point overlooking the corner of Lincoln Street and Farrington Avenue.
His now re-energized internal sixty-watt bulb cast a warm glow across the lawn and to the frost-cracked sidewalk beyond.
Daniel mentioned to the family that the lightbulb was “Brandy-new.”
By Tim Cotton
December 13th, 2019
This is an old one, rehashed for Christmas 2021. Thanks for reading my stuff this year. May your holiday be merry and bright. Thank you for all the support. Be well. TC