By Billy “Kneecap” Braddock

Christmas should be a time of joyous celebration and remembering the reason we have Christmas. I hear there are some that would like to take the Christ out of Christmas. If that was the case there would be no Christmas because we celebrate the birth of Christ. If there was no Christ why do we base our calendar on his birth? I’m not going to get into a discussion of religion at this time. I want to address a more serious problem, my belief in Santa Claus. I’d like to tell you a little story about how I was brought up in the great traditions my home had at Christmas. I’m sure we all have stories about our Christmas as a child. The one I’m going to tell you now, is one I’d love to relate because this instilled in me the permanent believe in Santa Claus. Our family never put up our Christmas tree until the children went to bed. That’s when the tree would come out, get decorated and the presents were placed underneath. After the adults had recovered they would come and awaken the children and proclaim Santa had been there and had left his goodies. The excitement was unbearable. I would run as fast as I could to the tree and start ripping the decorative paper off my gifts. Even though I had to pee badly, I wouldn’t stop until all the gifts were unwrapped. After breakfast we would get dressed and go to church to thank God and Santa Claus for all that had been blessed upon us. To me Santa Claus was as real as anybody else in my family. However, when I started school there was this wise ass kid who told me “there is no Santa Claus“. I was devastated. When I got home, with tears in my eyes, I told my folks. They assured me there was a Santa Claus and because Christmas was only days away it would be proven to me. On Christmas Eve, I did as I was expected, and went to bed early and fell asleep dreaming of all the presents that Santa Claus would bring me. Then in the dead of the night by mother came in my bedroom yelling at the top of her voice “Billy, Billy, hurry get up grandpa has caught Santa Claus”. I ran as fast as I could with the fog of sleep still in my eyes to the room to where the Christmas tree was located. There stood my grandfather with a large piece of red felt in his hand. He looked at me and said “Billy, I had him but he was too strong. With the help of his reindeers he pulled away and this is all I could get, but at least now you know, Santa Claus is real”. When I returned to school, I beat up the wise ass for lying to me.

To this day “I still believe in Santa Claus”, because I know my grandfather would never lie to me.

There is a big difference between Santa Claus and myself. He stopped with three hoes.

There’s an update to this story go to my website nobodiesopinion.com for what Paul Harvey used to say “for the rest of the story”.

See you on the shiny side of tomorrow.