A heart-tugging tale of a boy and a troubled little girl who discover that the true spirit of Christmas is alive and well in the hearts of those who earnestly seek it.
Dr. Christopher Ringle is the last person you'd expect to find moonlighting as Santa Claus at the mall on the day after Thanksgiving. But it is there that he meets a young man named Molar Alan, who desperately needs a new perspective on the underlying value of Christmas. Dr. Ringle recruits Mo and his older brother as volunteers at a nearby children's hospital for the holiday season. At the hospital, Mo is tasked to help bring holiday cheer to the young cancer patients on the fifth floor. His biggest challenge is befriending a decidedly angry girl who is so embarrassed by her scarred appearance that she hides her face behind the safety of a paper bag. Almost in spite of himself, Mo finds that Christmas joy emanates from a source far greater than the North Pole, while the young girl learns that she is more beautiful than she had ever imagined.
Release date:
October 3, 2017
Publisher:
Center Street
Print pages:
160
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Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!
—Charles Dickens
Two words: “Merry Christmas”; or perhaps “Happy Christmas” if such fits your geographic predilection. Two words so full of promise but all too often relegated to commonplace by the jingling bells of wanting that accompany the season. Yet for those most fortunate few who stumble across its underlying significance, “Merry Christmas” becomes a treasure trove of goodwill—a miraculous gift waiting just beyond the oft-hollow words, to be opened and enjoyed by all who comprehend it.
To fully understand the inherent goodness of the occasion, you must first experience a real Christmas. When that occurs it becomes far more than just another holiday or a prolonged shopping spree. Christmas becomes a part of you, an ideal, and a desire to put the happiness of others ahead of your own. It becomes, in short, a paper bag.
A paper bag? Yes, precisely. But not just any paper bag, mind you. It becomes a weathered, wrinkled, dirty paper bag, the kind you’d just as soon throw out with yesterday’s trash if you didn’t know its history. A paper bag so soiled and lowly that it could only be used for one final purpose: as a lasting and irreplaceable reminder of why we celebrate at all.
Sadly, only a lucky few will ever encounter the likes of a real Christmas and the lasting joy it brings. Fewer still are lucky enough to know firsthand about the paper bag.
I am one of the lucky ones.
The day after Thanksgiving in 1980 marked the beginning of my first real Christmas. As a nine-year-old boy I had certainly celebrated the revered holiday plenty of times before, but that particular Christmas was the first one that really mattered. It was the type of experience that makes you wish Christmas was celebrated all year long, the kind that makes people forget about life’s imperfections and focus instead on its greatest treasures. For me it was a defining moment, one that has shaped and molded the very fabric of my soul.
I’M MOLAR ALAN, and this is my story. It is as real to me as the Santa of my youth, and I share it with an enduring hope that you will carry its message beyond the realm of reindeer, elves, or toys and embed it deep in your heart where the distractions and disappointments of life can’t enter, where the worldly can look but not touch, and where the rich in spirit can come and go at will.
As with many Christmas stories, mine began on Santa’s lap. But this was no ordinary Santa, and he had anything but an ordinary lap.
Chapter 1
I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.
—Shirley Temple
With Thanksgiving dinner less than twelve hours gone by, the house still smelled of pumpkin pie and green bean casserole. Mellow sounds of Bing Crosby drifting in from the record player in the parlor blended happily with the cheers of football fans roaring from the television in the living room. Food, Bing, and football: the Christmas season had officially begun, in all of its holiday glory.
My brother and I were knee deep in leftover turkey sandwiches when my parents entered the kitchen. “Let’s go, guys,” said my father excitedly as he pulled on his rain slicker and joined us at the counter. “It’s time to go see the big man!”
“Grandpa?” I asked as I wiped a smudge of mayonnaise from my cheek.
“No, not that big man. The other one. The big man in the big red suit!”
“Oh no,” I mumbled.
“Oh yes! We’re going to see Santa Claus!” He let the name roll slowly off his tongue for dramatic effect.
Our lack of excitement didn’t seem to bother him.
“Do we have to?” asked my brother Aaron. “I mean, aren’t we too old for that?”
Aaron was two years older than me and had long since figured out that the Santa Claus at the mall wasn’t the real Santa Claus.
“Besides,” Aaron continued, “if there was a Santa Claus, I’m sure he wouldn’t spend his Thanksgiving vacation at a mall in Oregon where it’s always raining. He’d be down in Florida or somewhere nice. So why should we even bother?”
“I disagree,” said my mother as she strode across the room. “He would be… I mean he is in Oregon enjoying this rain. In fact, he has to come here over Thanksgiving so he can pick up his reindeer! Get it? Rain deer.”
We got it but didn’t give her the satisfaction of a laugh. “That’s right boys,” piped Dad. “Besides, it’s tradition to tell Santa what you want for Christmas. And if you break tradition, you might not get what you want this year. Now go put on your coats. We want to beat the holiday rush.”
BY THE TIME we arrived at the mall all thoughts of beating the holiday rush were replaced by a desperate hope that we could simply find a parking spot. Inside was no better. People swarmed around from store to store laden with their bags and boxes and precious things.
The line to see Santa stretched nearly three hundred feet, from a small wooden cabin in the middle of the mall right on past a store that sold nothing but socks. A large hand-painted sign across the cabin doorway read, “The Santa Shack: A Little Taste of the North Pole.” Apparently the North Pole tastes like candy canes because elves in sparkling green tunics and dark purple tights paraded around the tiny structure handing them out to every man, woman, and child who entered.
Another elf stood alone near the end of the line. He was handing out red pieces of paper and pencils to each of the children as they approached the growing queue.
“What’s this for?” I asked when he handed me a paper.
“It’s for yous guys to make a list to give to Santi Claus, little boy.” The man spoke through a broken smile as he lowered himself down to look me straight in the eyes.
“You talk funny,” I said. Although I was nine, I had not yet figured out how to keep my brutally honest thoughts to myself.
“That right?” he laughed. “Well yous should know that back in da Bronx, you’d sound funny too.”
“Sorry Mister,” I offered. I was glad he didn’t take it personally. “So how come we have to write our list down? Can’t we just tell him when we get up there?”
“We figure since yous guys gonna be here in line a while, you might as well make good use of da time, ya know? That way you don’t have to think of nothin’ to say to da big man when it’s your turn, ’cuz it’ll already be on your list. Just hand him your paper and move along. Got it?”
I nodded.
“Good.” He ruffled my hair with his hand as he stood up. “Merry friggin’ Christmas,” he added.
I looked at the paper and read the title at the top of the page: “All I Want for Christmas Is…” Other than those few words, the paper was full of blank lines, three columns wide on both the front and back—perhaps enough to write down every toy and gadget I’d ever seen in my entire life.
My parents asked the man how long the wait was.
“Well,” he said as his eyes darted back and forth between the crowded line and his wristwatch, “I ain’t exactly timing it or nothin’ ’cuz of my other important ’sponsibilities.” He held up the stack of paper and a fistful of pencils. “But I’d say about an hour, maybe more. Course, yous guys need to keep in mind that at twelve o’clock sharp, jolly ol’ Saint Nick up there’s gonna take a break for two hours. If you ain’t seen him by then, it’s just your bad luck.”
Mom and Dad decided they would leave us in line by ourselves while they did some shopping for “some very important people” who remained nameless. Aaron was left in charge even though I felt more than competent in my ability to take care of myself at the mall. So there we were, two brothers stranded at the end of what seemed like an endless line, waiting for our chance to hand over our Christmas lists to some stranger dressed up as Santa Claus.
With nothing else to do, we began filling in the blanks on our pap. . .
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