I’ve told this story in this space before, but I’m going to do it again, because I like it. Way back on the farm, Dad, and we four Meyer children were stacked into our family vehicle, a 1950 black and blue Dodge pickup. (Not a big one - a half-ton.)

 

We were off to Christmas Eve services at Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Oak Park, but we couldn’t leave. Mom, the choir director and organist, wasn’t with us yet. Attending to some final duties at the house before we were off, my 10-year-old brain suspected.

 

Just then, older brother Chuck kicked me in the leg and asked why Mom was always late getting into the truck for Christmas Eve services.

 

I looked at him, dumb-founded. 

 

“I don’t know,” I responded.

 

Then he responded: “‘Mom,” he said, is Santa Claus and she’s putting his stuff under the Christmas tree.

 

I looked at him with a blank face, to which he rolled his eyes.

 

Reminds me of the kid in the Christmas movie, when he stuck his tongue on the cold metal.

 

Mom was soon to join us and for the next 90 minutes, Gethsemane Lutheran, with Mom doing the directing, lifted the roof off the church with the joy of Christmas carols.

 

O Little Town of Bethlehem, O Holy Night and Joy To The World were some of the carols. It was an always-joyful night, this Christmas Eve service. It seemed everybody was happy.

 

Back home following the services, we gathered in the living room, around our brightly decorated Christmas tree. (Some years the tree wasn’t so great; Dad would cut one while deer hunting up at Effie a month earlier and, oh well.)

 

But then came the reading of Luke: 2, interrupted by some sibling suggesting: “Santa was here!”