A Year without a Santa Claus

Have you ever been told, did you ever hear? Of the curious, furious, fidgety year when Santa unhitched his sleigh and vowed that he was taking a holiday? How did it happen? Well, this way:

It was a long time ago before you were living – not yet Christmas but past Thanksgiving. Though I can't give you the very date, Santa got up that morning, late; pulled on one boot, then its twin, ruffled the whiskers on his chin. And sat back down on the side of the bed.

"Great North Star, but I 'm tired!" He said. "Painting wagons red and bright, sharpening ice-skates half the night, wrapping presents in ribbons and gauze, has worn me wear, " said Santa Claus. "A crick in my back, cold in my nose, aches in my fingers and all ten toes, and a sort of a kind of a kink inside whenever I think of that Christmas ride."

Into his workroom limped the Saint. He sniffed the varnish, he smelled the paint. And a reeling feeling came over him stealing to see things crammed from floor to ceiling: rocking horses with shaggy manes, balls, dolls, electric trains, gloves, mitts, doctor’s kits, rubber boots, cowboy suits, kites for flying in parks, bicycles, Noah’s Arks. And he started to shake and he started to shiver at the thought of the load he must soon deliver.

And he sighed, “Oh, dear!” as he buttoned his vest. “I wish one year I could take a rest.” When the words were out, he stood stock still. And then he whispered, “I think -I- will! I will,” he cried with eyes ablaze. “Everyone else gets holidays: sailors and tailors and cooks do, policemen and writers of books do; tamers of lions and leopards, preachers and teachers and shepherds; watchmen, Scotchmen, Spaniards, Turks; butchers and bakers and grocery clerks—they take time off as Christmas nears. All except me. So it appears that, saint or not, it’s time I got my first vacation in a thousand years.”

Out in the stable, muzzling hay, the reindeer dreamed of Christmas Day.

But Santa phoned to the reindeer-groom, “Hang up the harness in the big store room.”

He called to his Elves, he told each Gnome, “Cover up the shelves! We’re staying home.”

“What? Cover the shelves?” cried the Gnomes and Elves. “Cover the dolls and electric trains and the rocking horses with shaggy manes. And the rubber boots for splashing in parks and the cowboy suits and the Noah’s Arks? Alas! Alack!” For they couldn’t believe that he wouldn’t go riding on Christmas Eve.

“Put ‘em away,” roared the saint, vexed, “This year’s presents will do for next. Warn the people, tell the papers, I’m much too tired for Christmas capers. A crick in my back, a cold that lingers, aches in my toes and all ten fingers, a bit of lumbago, touch of gout, climbing down chimneys is simply out. I may be the saint of the children’s nation but this is the year of my first vacation.”

Well, you can imagine, more or less, what happened when that news reached the Press. Headlines screamed, Wires went humming,

SANTA SAYS ‘TOO TIRED’ – NOT COMING

And as the word flashed far and wide you should have heard how the children cried! So violently they sobbed their griefs the shops ran out of handkerchiefs. Their tears filled up the kitchen sinks and cellars and empty skating rinks. They wept in school, at play they wept. They dampened their pillows while they slept. Before those darlings’ eyes got drier, all the rivers rose three feet higher. And I don’t know what would have happened, quite, except for Ignatius Hepplewhite.

Ignatius Hepplewhite was a boy in Texas (or was it Illinois?). Six years old, but brave for his years, he sobbed no sobs and she wept no tears. But stood up tall in his class to say, “Santa deserves a holiday!”

“No, no, no!” Came the children’s plaint. “What is Christmas without our saint?”

“Shucks, now, fellows! Gosh, Good Gracious! Christmas is Christmas,” cried Ignatius. “And everyone tells me, whom I’ve met, it’s a day to give as well as to get. Since all these years in the children’s cause, Santa’s been giving without one pause, let’s pull together in the Christmas weather and give this year to Santa Claus!”

“Hooray,” his classmates said “He’s right! Three cheers for Ignatius Hepplewhite!”

Fast as a hurricane, children hurled that happy message around the world, over each continent, isle and isthmus: “Let’s give Santa a Merry Christmas.”

With snow the earth was already whitening, but they rolled up their sleeves and worked like lightening. They opened their piggy banks, racked their brains. They chartered buses and special trains and ships and sledges and hydroplanes - to reach the Pole by the 24th was their goal.

East, south, west, north came gifts and gifts and gifts to spare form clever children everywhere: slippers with zippers to zip on; soap for his bath or to slip on; geraniums pink in a pot; one guppy, a puppy named Spot; balsam pillows, strawberry jam, dressing gowns with his monogram; ten harmonicas for him to play on, hand-painted pictures done in crayon, mufflers, pipes, an easy chair, and lots of winter underwear. In New State a boy named Pudge cooked him a plate of home-made fudge. And little Girl Guides of Britain each made him a scarlet mitten, while a boy in Siam sent him a Siamese kitten. They sent him lemon-drops by the carton; ashtrays modeled in kindergarten; Jack-knives, pen-wipers, cakes and crullers, and magic pencils that wrote in three colors.

Tots who hadn’t a penny to spend wrote him letters signed: “A FRIEND.” And they had more fun, that strange December (they said) than any they could remember.

While up at the Pole, in the fragrant hay, the idle reindeer dreamed at play. Comet nickered for oats and corn, Dancer brandished his velvet horn, while sadly, sorrily, lounged at home each idle Elf and Gnome. Santa sat poking the fire, and blinking, but nobody knew what he was thinking.

Then suddenly, from the sky there came the sound of planes. He heard the hoot and the cry of ships and special trains. “Noel!” tootled that sledges, “Honk!” the buses said, and out of his study window Santa put his head. He looked t the left. He looked to the right. He didn’t trust his own eye-sight, so many, so merry, so more and more packages rolling to his front door.

Smack at his doorsill they thundered, a million! A thousand! A hundred! Flat ones and fat ones and lean ones; crimson and silver and green ones, broad ones, odd ones, plain romantic ones, little and big and great GIGANTIC ones; parcels from London, Rome, Seoul, Atlanta and each addressed alike: “To Santa.”

Atop them all a banner glinted where Ignatius Hepplewhite had printed these words: “Good luck and holiday mirth from all the children upon the Earth.”

With toots and hoots and honks light-hearted the buses turned and the trains departed, leaving the Saint surrounded by parcels piled to the Polar sky.

Santa was silent for a minute. His eye looked bright but a tear stood in it. Then he blew his nose like a trumpet blast. “God bless my soul!” He said at last. “By the Big Borealis! By my maps and charts! I didn’t know children had such kind hearts. How could a man feel gladder, prouder?” He turned to his staff and his voice got louder. “Gnomes! Elves! Every mother’s son! Don’t stand staring, there’s work to be done. Bring in the barrels, fetch in the boxes, carry in those packages and don’t break a one!”

But where to put them? There wasn’t space in parlor or study or any place. They overflowed bureau, couch and table, filled the house the sheds; the stable; slid from the mantels, jammed the casement, bulged from attic and burst from basement.

“There’s nothing to do,” exclaimed the Elves, “Except to empty some workshop shelves.”

Off those shelves, then, Santa’s forces whisked the painted rocking horses. When the presents wouldn’t fit, down came kite and doctor’s kit. Still, there wasn’t room for all so away went basket ball, cowboy suit, rubber boot, bicycle and talking doll. Till by the time twilight reigned not a single toy on the shelves remained. All were sacked and packed away in the one place left – the Christmas sleigh.

Then Santa gazed from floor to rafter and gave his mightiest shout of laughter; laughed loud ho-ho’s, laughed vast ha-has. “What a joke,” he chortled, “on Santa Claus. You might as well phone the reindeer-groom to take down the harness in the big store room. Get me my gloves, the robe for my lap. Get me my gloves, the robe for my lap. And my coat and my warmest stocking cap. There sit the sleigh with toys inside. So what can I do tonight, but ride?”

“What about your gout?” the Gnomes cried out. “What about your aches and the crick in your spine?”

“Pooh!” laughed Santa, “My back feels fine! Never felt younger, never felt stronger. Haven’t got a symptom any longer. And before the midnight bells go chiming I’d like to do some chimney climbing. So harness the reindeer, let ‘em rip! It’s time to being my favorite trip.”

With a flurry and scurry and chatter and hurry they brought him his cap and his laprobe furry, they roused Cupid, they rubbed down Vixen. They polished the bells on Donner and Blitzen. There were cheers from the Gnomes, from the Elves applause. Then off through the night flew Santa Claus.

And I’ve heard the old people often say that there was never such a Christmas Day. Never such job after Santa had swirled from rooftop to rooftop around the world. While at the home of a sleep boy in Texas (or was it Illinois?) a special letter was left that night addressed to “IGNATIUS HEPPLEWHITE.” It was clipped to the handlebars (like a metal) of the best two-wheeler a boy could pedal.

“Dear Sir,” was written in Santa’s hand, “Please thanks the children in every land. Tell them I’ll take good care, I hope, of the guppy and the puppy and the slippery soap. I like my pipes, I love my chair and and I do appreciate the underwear. And I pledge this promise on my sled and pack: year after year I’ll be coming back. Vacations, I guess, weren’t meant for me. I’ll never want another one. Yours, S.C.”

And that’s one reason, you may believe, why children are merry on Christmas Eve. You know, yourself, as you hang your stocking it doesn’t matter if the winds are knocking. Though the storm falls heavy, though the great gale roars, though nobody else would budge outdoors. Snug in your bed while the tempest drums you can count your blessing on fingers and thumbs, for year, newly, faithfully, truly, somehow Santa Claus ALWAYS COMES.

“The Year without a Santa Claus”
was written by Phyllis McGinley, Copyright 1956.

Note: This is story is a lot more fun with the pictures but is out of print;
however, it can still sometimes be found at Amazon.com.