I blamed it on Santa

It may surprise you to know that as a child, I told a lie. One particular December, I claimed that an overweight man in a red coat broke into our house at night and left garbage in the living room. This was uncharacteristic of my angelic nature. While some kids can stretch the truth like a rubber band, I was the guilt-filled child who would blurt out exactly what I did wrong. So my sort of lying involved withholding information and asking questions that would deflect away from myself.

Here's what happened: I was probably eight or nine years old, and Christmas morning came at 5:23 am, shortly after the pattering of hooves and the jingling of bells woke me up. I knew I was absolutely not allowed to wake my parents up before 6am, so I laid lie lay, oh forget it stretched out on my bed and tried to contain the excitement that was bundled up in my legs that were covered with fleece footie pajamas.

Forget this, I thought and quietly snuck out of my bed. Jessamy lay layed laid lied bahhh  slept peacefully in the bed next to me. I padded out into the living room and surveyed the gifts under the Christmas tree. I wasn't going to commit a sin on Jesus' birthday and unwrap my presents when no one was around, because how in the world would I cover that one? Get some newspaper, tape the box back up, and act like nothing was unusual? No. So what I did was go for my stocking. I took it down off the mantle (this was when I actually lived at a place that had a brick mantle) and started pulling out all the goodies. Some of it was loose, but many items were wrapped in white tissue paper.

Like a mummy escaping from the grave, that white wrap got pulled off instantly. I enjoyed looking at all my loot for about five seconds before I started to get nervous that I would be discovered and I shoved all the stuff back into the sock. I didn't have time to wrap the items back up in tissue paper, so what I did was hang my stocking full of stuff back up on the mantle, and I placed the rumpled sheets of tissue paper on top of the side table, next to a messy stack of newspapers. Then I went back to bed to dream of Sugar Plums dancing in my head.

When I was finally allowed to get out of bed and wake the parentals, I did so cautiously. Within minutes I was sitting in a pile of wrapping paper, smiling with glee at all of the American Girl doll clothes the elves had sewn and Santa had delivered.

Then my mother's eyes turned to the pile of tissue paper on the table. "Where did that come from?" She asked. Oh shit, I thought. Actually, that is a lie. I did not think Oh shit. In truth, I did not ever think Oh shit until I was at least 19 years old and became a frantic college student with too many deadlines. I started to swear a lot in my mind the year I had to drive over the Marion Street Bridge every morning. Just another example of how the life of a teacher corrupted my good person. Glad that's over. But back to the story...

"Hmmm" I pondered. Then I came up with something very plausible. I obviously wasn't going to blame my sister because she would deny it all, but wasn't there an old man who came to my house that very night? Hadn't he come and left things for us? And don't you think he might have been in a mad hurry to get to all of those houses, so perhaps he left a few scattered bits of last minute wrapping around?

"Maybe Santa left it," I suggested. I did not confess to breaking into my stocking before 6 am. The horror of telling the truth. After I tried to pin the blame on the bearded guy, my mother said nothing. After all, how was she to know what Santa had been up to that night? Her silence convinced me that she believed the story.

Just so you know, I confessed all of this to my mother earlier this month. The truth will always come out, even if it is years later. She chuckled about it and told me she didn't remember the incident at all. Have you ever tried to blame something on Santa?