“He comes down the chimney and leaves presents in your stocking! I’m telling you it’s true!” said Robin Blue Eyes.
“You’re making this up,” I replied. “Besides, there are no chimneys in Bangkok.”
“Well, he came to our flat last December, he did. His name is Santa and he brought me a shiny new top, all the way from England!”
“And how did he get to your flat?”
“By a flying sleigh pulled by reindeer. Reindeer look like water buffaloes with bigger horns, and they can fly.”
Robin Blue Eye’s story was getting more and more preposterous. Everybody in third grade knew that Robin likes to make up stories about England even though he was born in Thailand and has only been to England once to visit his grandparents.
“Ok then. I’ll ask my parents about Santa. They went to school in America and I’m sure if this Santa exists they would know about him.”
That evening I asked my mom about Santa. She assured me that no such person exists, and if he did, he wouldn’t visit Bangkok in December anyway because reindeer can’t fly through the winter monsoon rains. This explanation made sense to me, but still I wondered about how Robin got that fancy spinning top from England.
I didn’t give Santa another thought until December 24th. It was just another day at the International School but all the English and German kids returned home early. It was a warm sunny day and I thought of what Robin Blue Eyes and my mom had said about Santa.
What have I got to lose? If Santa really did exist maybe I can get a new toy from England too.
That night I searched for a stocking but the closest I could find was an old school sock with a large hole in the heel. There was no chimney in our house so I threw the sock on the top of my mosquito netting, the highest point in my bedroom.
“What are you doing?” asked my older sister J.
“Hanging up my stocking for Santa,” I replied.
“Santa doesn’t exist. Mom said so. You believe everything Robin says.”
Of course I did. Robin Blue Eyes was my first childhood crush so everything he said must be true. I stayed up late waiting for Santa but eventually succumbed to sleep.
The next morning I scrambled out of the mosquito netting and pulled the sock down. It was empty.
“I told you Santa doesn’t exist!” said my sister. “Now do you believe me?”
“No, I don’t. He does exist. But my sock had a hole in the bottom so his present must have fallen out.” And I truly did believe that for the longest time.
The following year we moved to America and Robin Blue Eyes left Bangkok for boarding school in England. As fate would have it, we met again thirty years later at a conference in Asia. He was still as charming as ever and his eyes were still as robin egg blue as ever.
I told Robin my story about Santa and he admitted to me that he knew all along that Santa didn’t exist, but he so wanted to believe the stories that his parents told him about England. And though I’m all grown up now, on Christmas Eve I always double-check just to make sure that all of our Christmas stockings are in tip-top shape with no holes in the bottom.
