My first Christmas at Fort Lewis, Washington was rather interesting in several ways. First, my house in Spanaway, Washington was the first house that I had ever lived in that had an actual fireplace and chimney. As a result, we could make the whole ‘Santa came down the chimney and through the fireplace to deliver the toys’ story believable for my daughter. Now, whether she actually bought that whole song and dance was another story. All I’m saying is that we could make the whole story sound believable. Back in the day when I was a kid, when my parents tried that whole story on me, I was not quite so Gull-e-bull. No fireplace and chimney, no visit by Santa Claus. Plus, the first thing I checked on Christmas Day morning was whether there were sleigh marks and reindeer tracks anywhere around the house or in the yard. No tracks, no visit by Santa. Add to that, at the beginning of the holiday season, parents always dropped their kids off at the National Guard Armory to visit Santa while they went shopping. The purpose of dropping the kids off at the National Guard Armory was so that kids could visit with Santa and get free candy. The kids could tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas. But you see, I never got any of the bullshit that I told Santa that I wanted for Christmas that year, or any other year for that matter. Go figure. That was always a dead giveaway. It was pretty hard to pull a snow job on a kid who never got a single stinking gift on his Santa list. Not even that proverbial chunk of coal in the Christmas stocking. So, let’s review why the whole ‘Santa delivered your presents’ story didn’t work on me. First, there was never any sign that the old guy had ever been to the house. Second, the few times we actually convinced our parents to allow us to leave out milk and cookies for Santa, they were still there in the morning. What the hell?!? If you’re going to make the story believable, at least get rid of the milk and cookies. But nope. That was too much trouble. Third, we never got any of the shit that we asked for in our letters to Santa or when we visited him. Fourth, there was no way short of walking through the front door, for the fat bastard to get in the damn house. Fifth, and I’m just throwing this one out there for anybody else that may be observant. Have you ever noticed that the beard on some of those Santa costumes looks really hokey? If you look closely, you can tell that it’s fake. Your Honor, the prosecution rests. As I said, I wanted to make the story at least believable for my daughter. I even made sleigh marks in the backyard in the snow. We didn’t have much snow, but it did snow that year. It snowed a couple of times that year before Christmas. I borrowed a sled from my neighbor to make the sleigh tracks. And I cut one leg off of a roadkill deer to make the reindeer tracks. I figured my daughter wouldn’t know the difference between deer and reindeer. I mentioned that Christmas that year was interesting in several ways. Another way that it was interesting was that we went out and bought a live potted Douglas Fir to decorate as a Christmas tree. That way, after the Christmas season, we could plant the tree along the edge of our yard. We actually started a tradition that lasted the whole time we lived in Washington, whereby we bought a live tree to decorate every Christmas so that we could plant it in our yard after the Christmas season. Thus, we were not recycling any cutdown Christmas trees. I continued that same tradition later in Arizona as well. Since I was preparing for a deployment with my unit at Fort Lewis, I did not get a whole lot of time off during the Christmas holiday. However, we did make Christmas very special for our daughter even to the point of showing her that Santa’s sleigh had parked in the backyard. Then, my daughter and I built a snowman in the backyard. Sadly, the snowman only lasted one day and didn’t even make it to her birthday. But two days later on a nice warm sunny day, we celebrated my daughter’s birthday. We threw a small birthday party for her and invited a couple of the neighbor kids. When it was time, we all sang “happy birthday” to my daughter and wished her a happy birthday. Another first that year was that we bought party favors and noisemakers to help us celebrate the new year. When it was time, we got our noisemakers and our champagne and rang in the new year in our house in Spanaway, Washington for the very first time. For me and my wife and daughter, this was our first complete holiday season where we celebrated all of the events. We celebrated Christmas, my daughter’s birthday, and ringing in the new year. We celebrated all of these things and we didn’t experience even one hiccup that could be construed as just another exercise in futility.
by 
by 