Goodbye Santa

by Donna Poole

Ellie Porter trudged home from work through the dirty city snow. The wind chill was a bitter minus twenty and her worn coat barely cut the chill, but she wasn’t about to spend money on bus fare, especially now.

“Well, Grandma,” she muttered, teeth chattering, “at least I won’t have to make this freezing walk for the next six weeks. How’s that for playing your Glad Game? But I won’t get a paycheck for six weeks either.”

Ellie’s grandma had raised her after her mom had died when Ellie had been a toddler. The paramedics who’d responded to calls from worried neighbors had found Ellie lying next to her mother, crying. They estimated she’d been there for two days. Ellie had no memory of it or her mother. Her childhood memories were of happy, carefree summer days on the farm with Grandma, of decorated cedar trees, church music, and turkey dinners at Christmas. There were always gifts under the tree from Santa, a doll, clothes, a new book.

Grandma loved books and told Ellie her mom had too.

“Your mom named you for Eleanor Porter. She was the author who wrote Pollyanna in 1913.”

“Is Pollyanna your favorite book, Grandma? Is that why you read it to me all the time?”

Grandma had smiled. “The Bible is my favorite book, but I do love Pollyanna. We’re going to have to buy a new copy soon. This one is worn out from all the times I read it to your mother and now to you.”

Whenever Ellie was sick or sad, Grandma said, “Play Pollyanna’s Glad Game. Let’s find something to be glad about.”

Ellie didn’t like the book nearly as well as Grandma did, and she strongly disliked the Glad Game, but the year she turned ten she found a beautifully illustrated copy of Pollyanna under the cedar tree. The book’s inscription said, “Never get too old for the Glad Game. Love, Santa.”

Ellie had already been suspicious about Santa and almost asked Grandma why Santa’s handwriting looked so much like hers, but she didn’t.

Grandma died suddenly before New Year’s Day, and Santa died too. Ellie spent the next eight years in foster homes. She seldom spoke of those years. Her twelve-year old daughter, Roxie, was the result of living in one of those homes, and the foster father was in jail.

Ellie adored her daughter.

If only Roxie could have a Christmas like the ones I had with Grandma, with a cedar tree, turkey dinner, and a new book.

That thought had become an obsession this year. Ellie had laughingly even voiced it to a “Santa” who had passed through her line where she worked in a booth as a parking lot attendant at the hospital.

“And what do you want for Christmas, ma’am?”

“Goodbye, Santa.” She had laughed at him. “I don’t believe in you.”

“That doesn’t matter; I believe in you.”

He was so young and looked so serious in his red Santa suit. He must have a good heart; he was volunteering his time to cheer up children in the hospital. Why make him feel bad?

“Okay, Santa. I want a cedar tree, a turkey dinner, and a new book for my daughter.”

“A cedar tree? Not one of the beautiful Fraser Firs they sell in the lots near here?”

She shook her head. “Nope. A scraggly cedar like the kind that grew on Grandma’s farm.”

The driver behind “Santa” honked his horn.

Santa chuckled an authentic ho ho ho. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Right. Goodbye, Santa.”

That had been two weeks ago. Now, two weeks before Christmas, the hospital laid off all the parking lot attendants for at least six weeks. Because of COVID 19 they decided to use the kiosk only system to help prevent the spread of the virus.  

“Wonderful timing, just great,” Ellie muttered as she continued plodding through the dirty snow. She stopped to catch her breath, pulled her collar up under her chin, and noticed a church sign and a manger scene. The three kings were close to baby Jesus, but the shepherds were outside the enclosure and had been splattered with salt and dirt from tires.

“This is all wrong,” Ellie said to the shepherds. “You’re supposed to be close to baby Jesus. Those kings didn’t even show up until sometime later when Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were in a rented house. You’re getting a raw deal. And now I’m talking to wood carved nativity figures.”

Ellie started laughing. She looked closely at the shepherds. The artist had done a beautiful job. The years of hard work and suffering lined their faces, but so did their awe and joy as they looked at the Christ Child.

Ellie looked at baby Jesus herself. She knew the story was the truest ever told, the one that offered hope in the mess of life. Ellie remembered baby Jesus had become a man who’d willingly suffered and died on a cross to take the punishment for the sin of the world.

“You never stepped out of the mess of my life, Jesus,” she whispered, “but I said goodbye to you too. Roxie doesn’t know a thing about you.”

The church sign advertised a Christmas Eve Candlelight service.

Ellie didn’t have Grandma’s cedar tree, turkey dinner, or a new book to offer Roxie, but she could share Grandma’s faith. She’d bring Roxie to this candlelight service, just like Grandma had taken her to one at a little country church.

Ellie kept walking. It was still too cold; her coat was still too thin, and her life was still a mess. But strangely, she felt stirrings of hope and joy despite everything.

As Ellie walked up the flight of stairs to her apartment, she caught a scent of cedar and laughed at herself. “First I talk to nativity figures; now I smell invisible trees.”

She pulled her key from her bag, looked up, and almost rubbed her eyes. It couldn’t be, but it was. She saw a small cedar tree with scraggly branches propped against her door. Next to it sat a box with a turkey and everything she needed to make Christmas dinner. Could there be a book too? She looked, no book. Well, it was still a Christmas miracle. She’d give Roxie the beautiful copy of Pollyanna Grandma had given her and teach her the Glad Game.

This was the real world, not a make believe one. Where exactly had these gifts come from? They couldn’t have been here long, not in this apartment building; someone would have walked off with them. Ellie looked down the hallway. Was she imagining that flash of red disappearing around the corner?

She chuckled. “Goodbye, Santa!”