Santa in the School
I Was Santa Yesterday
On December 6th, I was Santa in my wife’s school. What!? On December 6th? Doesn’t Santa come at Christmas?
Yes, but not everywhere. In Hungary, all through my childhood, Santa came on the evening of December 5th. We put our boots in the window and found a package in it filled with chocolate, sugar, peanuts, maybe an orange, and other delicacies.
In countries with a Catholic background, December 6th is Saint Nicholas Day. For us, St. Nicholas is Santa. We call him Mikulás.
I only learned after the fall of the Iron Curtain that in the West, Santa comes at Christmas.
In the School
My wife is a Vice Principal in a school for mentally handicapped children. She is a special education teacher and takes great delight in her work.
The Santas from the previous years were unavailable, so she asked me to come and help out.
The kids in the school are only mildly handicapped. They are adorable. My wife says that what the teachers don’t get from the children in their learning progress, they receive from them in emotions.
So it was fun. These kids are so innocent and sweet. Many of them still believe Santa is real.
The teachers wrote me if the kids’ behavior was good or not-so-good, and I read and interpreted their assessments before I handed all of them their presents. It was so great to see their joy and excited smiles.
So what about Christmas?
Yes, of course, we have Christmas, too, with the Christmas tree and abundance of gifts. Christmas is the real thing. Our Santa Claus holiday is a mini-christmas at the beginning of December. It is a good warm-up for the year-end celebrations.
In our country, the “little Jesus” brings gifts to the children at Christmas.
December is a great month of holidays. It will be fun to reunite with the family again and experience the love bombs with the Christmas tree, good food, and presents.
So, Santa wishes you lots of love and a happy December in 2023.
“And now remains faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).
