"Dear Santà, I Want a Master Charge. Love, Betsy"

By Evelyn Hayes

The following is excerpted from a short story, "Dear Santa, I want a Master Charge, Love, Betsy" by Evelyn Hayes.

This morning I answered an ad in the Pluin Deuler for employment as Santa Claus at Halle's Severance. I interviewed with Ms. DiRikà. If she hired me, I would be the first and only woman Santa Claus in Cleveland's history.

I needed a job, but now. I was in debt up to my neck. I was trying to finish a Master's Degree thesis in American Studies at Case Western Reserve University and my loans had expired, my credit cards were to the limit and I had been eating burned chili for

Photo by Janet Century

three weeks. I didn't have any moncy for Christmas gifts and I needed new shoes. The pair I had were so sure of going every morning they came running, jumped onto my feet and recently, they were learning

To tie their own laces.

This experience made me sure of one thing; I didn't want any more degrees. I admired those who could suffer through time for a Ph.D., but as it was, I could be addressed as BA and soon I would be MA and in my case, I would find that the letters Ph.D. wouldn't be nearly as appropriate a title as they would abbreviations for "Piled Higher and Deeper." I laid aside my rare blend of horse manure and sincerity in favor of Samson's A Book of Christmas. I turned to the second chapter, “Origins and Observ-

ances.

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I discovered that, in early cultures of the Stone and Bronze Ages, primitive people were hunters and breeders of the ancestors of today's horses, cattle and sheep. Being close to Nature, their gods took the form of animals and their priests wore horns and sacred skins. The horn and cloven hoof became symbols of the Devil when Christianity outlawed evidence of older religions.

Then came the Iron Age with iron replacing flint for tools and weapons and people formed agrarian communities who planted corn and other crops. The people of older religions sought refuge by hiding in forests and hills, sallying forth at times to strike back at the iron wielders who had driven them underground. The primitive people survived in Christmas mythology as fairy folk and elves. Their horned gods were disguised in figures such as the Welsh Mori Lwyd who “appeared before Christinas in a white shroud alive with tinsel and ribbons and

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bells but with the clean skull of a horse's head carrying a brush-like hair tuft stiff upon the brow. In the cye-sockets were glass bottle ends. The person inside moved the jaws of the horse up and down, snapping the teeth-a live and laughing skull snickering and snackering, darkly pleasing to children as it pranced and danced."

The older religions survived in cults until they were suppressed by the Inquisition. After the fairy and horned men came the Druids; with evergreen and mistletoe, with golden sickle and jealously guarded crystal, magic maker of fire with rays from the sun. There was a devotion of the green; holly, fir and rosemary and an awe of that which remained green in the dead of winter. Tapers and fires were lit to celebrate the sun and to keep evil spirits away noises were made at night.

I turned the page and found out that Father Christmas was originally a Roman deity, Saturn,' which ate children who were themselves the gifts of Christmas. That fact alone was enough to make one a vegetarian. Apparently, Christmas descended historically from the Roman Saturnalia-Kalendae Festival.

In the early agrarian societies primitive people depended on the rain and the sun for the growth of their crops which fed their animals and themselves. In areas of the carth which were more temperate, the sun was the more important of the two necessities and primitive people developed a Solstitial worship. Although the calendar dates of Christmas changed through time from the 18th of January to the 6th of January and then to the 25th of December, it is the latter date which is celebrated as the moment of the Sun's rebirth as well as the birth of Jesus in Christianity.

The Saturnalia was a feast of 7 days which honored the god Saturn, a farmer of a Golden Age. The feasting was followed by the Kalendae, which was concerned mathematically with the start of the New Year and the deity of two faces, Janus, the god of doors, of exits and entrances, who looks back to the past and forward to the future and signifies the dichotomies of Good and Evil, God and Devil. The god Janus influenced the tradition of St. Nicholas in that the latter was also a spirit of Good who brought gifts and also had a, counterpart, the fearsome Pelsnickel, who carried whipping sticks and left ashes for children who were bad during the year.

I continued reading. In Holland, St. Nicholas becomes Santa Claus, who arrives in the seafaring country by ship and on Christmas Day rides a white horse throughout the land for Dutch children who leave'wooden shoes before their fireplaces to receive gifts of sweets or birch rods. In America Clement Clarke Moore popularized Santa Claus with phrases such as "the had] a little round belly, That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly." Essentially the "jolly old cll" was a kindly spirit, more good than evil and more human than godlike.

The festival of Christmas was highly celebrated in the Middle Ages as The Feast of Fools where The Lord of Misrule was chosen by lot. The person who found a bean in his cake was the Bean King who ruled over the revelry. In this festivity the daily course of things somersaulted and servants became kings, and sexes changed dress and everyone wore a disguise. It was a bacchanal orgy of drinking, cating and dancing. Wassail, a drink of warm beer with spices in which floated apples, was drunk to AngloSaxon toasts of "wes hal be hole," meaning "Good Health!"

Christmas as a celebration was put down by the reformation and puritanism which strengthened the spirituality of Christmas and did away with heathen revelry. Although there was a partial recovery of tradition, the 18th Century rational-thinking controlling classes were intolerant of the winter festival and repressed it. Not until the 19th Century was there

a sentiment and nostalgia for a golden past that revitalized the desire for the traditions of Christmas. Mr. Samson makes an interesting editorial remark that there is a reiterative pattern in the later developments in Christmas celebration in that two motifs reflect exactly the carly beginnings of solstitial worship: "First, the entry of St. Francis, whose visionary love of all nature reflects a kind of pantheism similar to the worship and wonder for nature of carlier religions. Secondly, the Victorian and again the present-day longing for the past as a time of plenty and of generous spirit-the golden age myth indeed, the original motivation of the Saturnalia."

It was late. I felt my eyes closing in spite of my interest in reading and several times I had to keep myself from nodding out. I didn't want to go to sleep just yet. Mr. Sainson was getting into some details of Christmas tradition. “Resuming a fragmental look at the history of Christmas we know that the Middle Ages celebrated the season with much energy and license...."

I was adrift on an ice floe. In the distance was a large green, red and white striped pole with letters at the top-NORTH. I was at the North Pole! · I wished I had brought my camera with me. It was colder than I've ever known. My body shivered so vigorously to keep warm that i was sweating. The sweat began to freczc. I was having difficulty breathing. The cold air was burning my nasal passages and my lungs hurt.

Blue glacial bergs were splintering and breaking away from the mainland where I was headed. I was either going to crash into them or fall into the water. I was afraid that I was going to drown. I looked into the water and saw my reflection, but the face that looked back wasn't mine. It was a face with white whiskers. I was growing a mustache and beard. My long blonde hair was turning white.

I looked up. The sun was shining and the ice was refracting light like many glass prisms. I was blinded. intermittently by the sun, snow and ice. I squinted to see more clearly and my eyes filled with tears. I wiped the tears away as quickly as possible because I was afraid that my eyes would freeze shut. I realized the salt in the tears would keep them from freezing and so my hands were free again.

I decided to climb the glacier which was next to me and as soon as it drifted close to another glacier I would jump onto that one and then the next, until 1 reached the mainland. This I did. It did not take as long as I thought it would.

I saw many walruses and seals sunning themselves on the ice beaches. The scal pups were diving and sliding on a little ice hill just as children would on

Photo by Janet Century

sleds. There were several polar bears catching fish. They passed a salt shaker from one to another and salted the fish before they ate them. I saw a huge communal igloo which was made by joining four

(continued on page 13)

December, 1979/What She Wants/Page 7