Santa’s Orphanage

Percy Jones told lies. Not believable lies; those the other children could have forgiven, after all, a kid had to look out for himself, especially a weedy, bespectacled kid like Percy. Plus the elves who watched over them would frequently ignore an infraction earned in the right way. But getting caught, that was unforgivable.

And what absurd things to get caught lying about, too! He lied about having magical abilities that granted him the power of super strength. He lied about having been an explorer in the Amazon when everybody knew he’d lived in Room Number Nine and the snowy North Pole his whole life.  Most recently one evening during supper, he’d tried to convince Alicia Jones that the penguins outside had transformed into flamingos. Nobody even got up to look; the Head Cafeteria elf just rolled her eyes, got out her step stool and put an infraction mark down by Boy’s Room Age Nine.

The occupants of Boy’s Room Age Nine gave Percy a swirly after curfew that night and made him swear to stop telling lies.

“None of us will get any presents if you keep getting caught saying stupid things!” Rodney Jones said to the dripping and sniffing Percy. “Now it’s almost Christmas and we’re only one point away from getting on the Naughty List, so keep your mouth shut, okay? Why are you such a weirdo?”

Percy didn’t know. He’d imagine something and it would seem so exciting, so tantalizing, so different from cold reality that he just had to tell somebody about it. The fantastic words tumbled from his lips and he couldn’t seem to stop them.

And even before he’d become a liar he’d never been really good enough to stay long on the Nice List, anyway.  It wasn’t that he was worse than the other boys, he just wasn’t any good at hiding being bad. Rodney might sneak down to the kitchens and pilfer food with impunity, but Percy would get into an argument, lose his head, and punch the other boy in the nose—usually in front of the Head Elf or the Committee of Elves.

Still, since Percy didn’t really mind not getting much (if anything) on Christmas day, life hadn’t been so bad. Even the naughty kids got to eat the Christmas Feast at least. Then Santa had changed the regulations and said that an entire room had to maintain itself on the Nice List or everyone in the room would be put on the Naughty List and lose their presents. Suddenly, Percy’s faults became a liability to the other boys he lived with. It didn’t help that he was smaller than the rest of them as well. It had been a year since the change, and Percy hated his life.

Of course, Santa was still great. Percy would never speak ill of Santa. The Big Man would come by once a month all red and cherubic and pat everybody on the head and remind them to be good. He even remembered the names of every one of those three hundred and sixty-four orphans. Looking into those sparkling eyes and hearing the rolling friendly tones, Percy wanted nothing more than to please Santa.

But when Santa was gone, he just couldn’t seem to, and now all the other boys hated him for it.

He wiped the cold toilet water out of his eyes and made a pitiful attempt at defense. “If you really wanted to make sure we didn’t get on the Naughty List, you’d quit sneaking down to the kitchens and stealing the cookies!”

Rodney sneered at him. “The thing is, “I don’t get caught. That’s the point. You’re just an idiot who gets caught all the time.”

They left Percy to dry himself off and finish getting ready for bed by himself. He clicked off the fluorescent light in the bathroom ten minutes later, when he was certain all the other boys would be in bed. The room was filled with quiet breathing. Percy tiptoed to the window and pressed his nose against the pane. The world was white and frosty outside, the sky above dark and sparkling with stars. Only four days till Christmas, and despite himself, Percy felt a little thrill of anticipation.

Santa’s big holiday did not excite Percy. He already knew that if he was good enough get any toys, the other boys would take them away from him. He didn’t deserve them; he knew that. He’d be on the Naughty List if he was on his own so anything he got was rightfully theirs.

But Percy had one lie, one imagining, that he never told anybody. He’d heard the story when he was just four or five, still in the little kid rooms. One of the older girls had found him cleaning the bathrooms as punishment for some forgotten infraction. She whispered the story to him, delighted at her own blasphemous tale.

The story was about a world where Santa didn’t exist. Instead, each child had two grownup people, just two, no elves, who lived with the child and took care of the child. And on Christmas, those two people would think about the things that child liked and they would go out and buy presents for that child. The truly shocking thing was, they bought the presents no matter what that child had done that year. Percy still remembered the thrill that ran down his back when the older girl told him this.

“Bet even you would get a toy, and wouldn’t that be a waste!” The older girl had said, laughing as she left Percy with the toilet brush in his hand, standing stock still in the bathroom.

Now he stood at the window and imagined as hard as he could imagine that he lived in a house with just two people. If he sneaked down the stairs, he’d see them there wrapping presents on the floor, hoping to make him happy, even though he’d broken a half a rack of dishes last week and he’d sassed the teacher in Social Studies on Tuesday and wasn’t any good at math.

Out in the hallway he heard the footsteps of the hall monitor elf, coming to check that everyone was in bed and the daydream shattered. His reflection in the glass blurred and he pulled off his glasses to rub his eyes. It was a ridiculous idea, he told himself, turning away from the window and climbing into bed. Nobody gives gifts to people who aren’t good enough to deserve them.

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”

Ephesians 2:4-5

Merry Christmas!

#christmas #grace #santa