A Different View Of Santa

by Kirk Wood, via Keith

Kirk and Pam Wood have been friends of ours ever since we were all Workampers at a county park near Monterey, California. Their first gig as Workampers was at Fulton Mansion, a few years before we met them.

Kirk is active on some RV forums and has written articles for Escapees magazine. This article was posted on Facebook, so some might have already seen it. It's posted here with his permission.

Kirk grew up in rural Kansas, a few years after I grew up in rural Iowa. While I never had the same feeling toward Santa as he expresses, I can certainly understand it. And I can remember getting one major toy, plus some stocking stuffers for Christmas.

"Am I the only one here who does not really like the Santa Claus tradition?...  

What I remember from the days that I believed in this was that we were poor so I really depended upon Santa to bring me some nice thing like all of my friends got. Since my friends were all from families with reasonably good incomes, they got some wonderful things each year which I could only dream of. 

The year that I remember best, I started very early to work hard at being one of the nicest, best behaved, of all the children on his list! I think that I must have been about 6 years old at the time and while not perfect, I came pretty close for a small boy. Imagine my disappointment on Christmas morning, when I received my usual one small toy, new socks and a shirt. It was then that I concluded that for some reason Santa did not like me as well as he did all of my friends. That was the last year that I ever considered Christmas a good time of year. Fortunately it was not much later that I discovered the truth about Santa Claus and where presents actually came from, to my great relief. It was much easier to deal with being poor, than to think that Santa doesn't like me!

As far as I am concerned, Santa Claus as it is practiced in our country is a nasty tradition that by design makes the poor children feel even worse. Imagine how they must feel having to return to school and compare what gifts they got from Santa to those of their classmates! I could tell Santa what he should do with his list!

Christmas was, and should be a religious holiday which was given as much to the poor as to the wealthy. At my house, Santa Claus is not welcome!

Thanks for sharing, Kirk.

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