I've always hated December. The end of the year, the shopping propaganda, and the damned tradition of seeing Him everywhere. I get my manditory gift shopping done in November, just so I don't have to see the lights and the green and red, and especially so I don't have to see those shrines made for Him. This year I saw the decorations at the Bay going up before Rememberance Day. As soon as I finish my degree I'm moving somewhere where there isn't Christmas. My therapist said I should write about what happened to me. She said I have a communication problem, that to deal with my delusions I should talk about Him and what He did to me. I'm sure she thinks of it as just another Freudian nightmare of child abuse and metaphor. I wish Michael would remember what happened, just so I could show her, so I could show you, everybody! It would validate the dread that I feel at the start of each winter. When I was eight, Michael and I shared the same room at home. We shared everything else too; we were brothers and the best of friends. Christmas must have been easy for our parents because they could get toys that both of us would play with. When I was nine, I felt I should be a big boy and act like an adult, so I stopped believing in Him. I knew my parents didn't really believe in Him, and once I saw my father wrapping presents in the kitchen. I told Michael that He didn't exist; I got in trouble because he got so upset he started to cry. I felt really bad about it, but I knew I was right because I wasn't a boy anymore. Michael wouldn't talk to me for a week. I complained to my parents, and eventually I begged. I offered him my Spiderman pillow if he would just talk to me. He asked me if I believed in Him, and I said yes just so he would like me. Two days later he saw me at recess, talking to other boys about how He's not real. Michael screamed at me for being a liar, and punched me in the eye. Christmas Eve came, and I had this awful stomachache. I shared the same room with Michael but it was like we were far apart and I missed him. It was such a stupid thing to be broken up over... Christ, He didn't waste the irony. I was in bed, thinking about the toys we would get tomorrow morning and wondering if we could still play together. I didn't notice when Michael walked over to my bed. He wanted to talk to me, to ask why I didn't believe in Him. I told him about being a big boy, and how none of the bigger boys believed in Him, and about how our parents brought us our presents. He said I was being stupid and he would prove that He existed because He would come tonight like He's supposed to. So we camped out on the staircase, hoping to wait all night to see him come down the chimney like the poem. I thought nobody could fit down our chimney, but I shut up because Michael was talking to me again. We kept each other awake, looking into the living room every so often to see if He arrived yet. Michael fell asleep, and I went to the kitchen because I was thirsty. I had a glass of pop (big boys drank pop). It might have been Coke, but we never had Coca-Cola in the house again. I heard him before I saw Him; humming "White Christmas" and those black leather boots walking across the floor. I rushed to the stairs to wake Michael up, and we looked around the corner into the living room. He was there, bent over in front of the tree so all we could see was His ass -- He has the widest ass I have ever seen on someone who could still walk. He sort of turned and looked at us... I don't remember but we were standing in front of Him. The pictures make him look jolly and rosy. In real life, He's damned huge and intimidating. The pictures of Him have got the boots and the red coat with white trim, but they don't have the black leather riding gloves, the wide black belt or the horsewhip (reindeer whip?) on His belt. "Well well well, boys," he said. I remember a glint in His eyes, or maybe it was the tree lights. "I've made my list, and I've checked it twice." He paused for effect. I knew what he ment and I was terrified. "Michael, you've been a very good boy this year. I have a Matchbox Car Playset for you in my bag." The fat bastard looked down on Michael, looked down that red nose with the burst blood vessels I've seen on many winos since. "BUT, you did punch your brother at school, and good boys don't hit people. That was very naughty." Michael started crying as He made tich-tich noises with His tounge. "Now Timothy." He spread his feet apart so he could bend over, and put his face close to mine. He was far too close, especially after he hurt Michael like that. "Timothy, you haven't been nice at all." I could smell the milk on his breath, and see the bits of food and cookies in his beard. "Telling people I don't exist! That's not just lying, little Tim; that's mean. Being mean is very naughty indeed." He smiled, and I could see his yellow teeth. "I have something special planned for you." -(Dickensian/Victorian workhouses.) "I think of you all as my little elves," He mocked us. The big elves were the 5' skinny bullies who work over us, telling us how to work on an assemly and paint "Made in Taiwan" on the bottoms. -(Gruel.) We were fed this oatmeal and sawdust mush twice a day. Once a week we would get milk and cookies. -When I saw the movie Oliver with my girlfriend in high school, she thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown. Seeing all those kids again, working hard in a factory but _singing_! It was like some awful satire of what I'd been through. -(Torture. Veal fattening pens? Steel cages? Kennels. Metal floors and cage walls. Kept uncomfortably warm all the time, and sleeping on hay.) -(Special. "I alone survived to tell the tale...") "Usually I just take the naughty ones to my workhouse for a year and return them where and when they came from. You, Timothy, since you were so especially naughty, you'll remember that I _do_ exist because you'll be the only one who remembers the year you spend here." -(The Coca-Cola connection. 'He' drinks Coke because it was Coke that made him wear red with white fuzzy trim. 'He' drinks it all the time.)