The Anti-Claus

By Chris Vitatoe

Be forewarned: this is one of those quaint, cutesy, Christmas tale narratives that tend to pop-up around this time of year, but do not mistake me for the “Thomas Kinkade” of literature. Need a story be some deep, philosophical allegory for it to profoundly deliver the truth? Hopefully, you can bear with me, and learn from simplicity.

As life and God would have it, it seems that some of the most profound lessons in life are also the hardest upon you. Perhaps if the same thing that happened on Christmas Day of 1990 happened today, it wouldn’t phase me much, but I suppose everything seems more awful than it really is when you’re a dramatic, over-imaginative six-year-old.

I suppose, however, that my brother and I were begging for the aforementioned lesson, although we didn’t know what misfortune was soon to befall us as we fought in the back of the station wagon. On a cold winter day, or at least as cold a day as Houston , Texas can have, we were all piled in the seats of the heater-less station wagon, en route to great-grandma’s house for the annual Christmas Eve get-together with the extended family. In those days, a station-wagon would have the farthest back seat turned the opposite direction than the other seats, so that we were facing out behind the car instead of towards the front as everyone else’s seats were directed. This meant two things to me and my older brother Clifton , we two being the usual occupants of this privileged bench-seat: for one, no one could really see us when we fought. And then, if they heard us fighting and told us to stop, my mom couldn’t reach out and pinch our legs when we didn’t stop.

And so, as was customary, Clifton and I were putting the back seat to a good and proper use, swinging at each other, and kicking, and biting whatever loose appendages we could find in our teeth. Who knows what menial little remark or reproach had started our combat; it was most likely some sarcastic retort from Clifton about my clothing or a snide comment from my own lips. But in any case, the battle was on.

There were threats spewing from my mother, who had heard our ruckus over the tape in the dashboard playing the Temptation Christmas album, and was commanding us to cease our fighting. “ Clifton , pull over the car!” she would tell my father whose name my first-born brother shared. “I’m going to get them. Give me your belt...”

Neither Clifton nor I understood what the word “bluff” was, nor did we understand that we were calling our mother’s, but we did know that they probably wouldn’t stop the car in the middle of I-45. Thus, we continued, until our father turned down the radio, glanced once over his shoulder, and then looked towards mom.

“I could always return those presents,” Dad remarked to my mother, making sure that we heard him.

Instantly, the rambunctious devils in the backseat became as innocent as angels. Clifton and I sat upright, arms folded in our laps, sitting up straight. We suddenly looked like obedient little Baptist children in the middle of a church service, silent, reverent, and god-fearing.

I noticed that my dad smiled in the mirror as we suddenly remembered our good behaviors. But then, I noticed that he frowned a little, and his brow went down a bit. This worried me, for I knew, even at the age of five, that when the brow was down, trouble was brewing.

‘We’re behaving now!’ I thought to myself, wondering why he had stopped smiling. I wanted to assure him of our good behavior aloud, but I thought it best to simply keep my mouth shut, since he was probably sick of hearing me by now anyways.

And then he spoke, “Why is it that you only obeyed me when I threatened to take away your presents?”

A clueless shrug from both Clifton and I was the only answer he received, since neither of us were willing to speak. Besides, what good answer could we give in reply anyways?

My dad looked at us for a few more moments, then turned the stereo back up to its usual volume, and kept on driving.

That night, during the family festivities, our father didn’t say much more to us. While we were playing the Nintendo in our cousin Troy ’s room, he sat on the sofa in the living room, looking very contemplative. As we raided the kitchen for cake and cookies, he stared off into space, lost in his own thoughts. Even when the whole family gathered in the living room around him to bless the food and eat, he seemed still lost in his own world. He did not appear forlorn to me, nor did he appear troubled, but he did seem as if he was in a mood of deep thinking, which he did from time to time, being a well-read man and an unofficial philosopher (read the books, no degree). On the way home, he drove silently, while the two youngest siblings did most of the talking in the middle-seats.

It was upon awakening the next morning that Clifton and I received the shock of our lives. It was the typical Christmas sort of waking-up, where instead of a yawn and stretch, one suddenly jerks upward, snaps open their eyes, and then throws off all their sheets onto the ground in a terrible hurry to get to the living room, where was the tree. Clifton and I awoke simultaneously, and darted into the living room, so we could be the first to brag about the presents our parents had bought for us. I reached there first, since I had a bit of a head-start on him, and therefore, I was the first to be disappointed.

Christina and Corey, the younger siblings (a.k.a. “Thing One” and “Thing Two”), were already up and in the living room, as was my mom and my dad with the video camera. Grammy, my father’s mother, had apparently driven over earlier, and was present also, helping the younger siblings to play with their toys. But this was not the aforementioned shocking detail, though it was bizarre that the little ones had been awaken before us. The great shock came when we looked under the tree and saw that besides the wrapping from the presents for Corey and Christina, there was nothing left. There were no more presents!

“Hey! They opened our presents!” Clifton remarked.

“No, they didn’t,” my dad answered calmly. “I know what happened to your presents though. Follow me into the kitchen.”

Eager to see where our presents had been hidden, we did follow him, into the kitchen where the sweet aroma of pumpkin pie and hot pineapple-cinnamon cake had dominated the air. We glanced all around the kitchen, looking for bright wrappings and ribbons, but our presents were not in here either. And that’s when our father delivered the terrible news, saying, “You boys’ presents were taken.”

I don’t remember quite how long Clifton and I bawled, but it must have been a considerable amount of time, at least a good quarter-hour, because I remember how long it took my dad to try and console us. And then, after our weeping had gone down to a steady moaning, and we could speak again, it was either I or Clifton who asked, “Who took them?”

My dad was flustered, and had to think for a moment, but neither me or Clifton caught this at the time, this indicative sign of him fabricating some wild tale. “The Anti-Claus,” he answered. More than any other detail in this entire narrative, I remember most vividly when my dad said these words, and I learned the name of my new enemy.

“You said there was no Santa Claus!” Clifton accused.

“There isn’t. The Anti-Claus took your presents. We give presents, but the Anti-Claus comes and takes them away.”

“Why?” I sniffed.

“He’s not a bad man. He only takes presents away so that people can focus on what’s really important during Christmas; Jesus Christ, and the love of family.”

And with that explanation, it was done, since me and Clifton lacked the understanding to know that my father had simply blended Christmas time folklore with biblical eschatology to make up some faux Christmas thief (he was more clever than we had thought…). We spent the rest of the morning pouting and moping, as little children who don’t get their way most usually do. However, I remember that at about noon , the rest of the family came over to dinner and we forgot our sorrows when we began to play with our cousins. In fact, we totally forgot about the presents altogether while we were fellowshipping with our kin. And then even when they left, while I doubt we fully grasped what our dad was trying to teach us at that age, I do remember that we didn’t really care too much about our former plans of prosecuting the evil Anti-Claus and getting our presents back.

Within a week, a random bag of Christmas gifts appeared in one of the hallways, labeled “returned gifts”. Clifton and I rummaged through and found all of the gifts that we had been expecting for Christmas. I remember being pleased that I had my own Nintendo, and Clifton being happy to receive his robot. But neither of us were as over-enthralled as we would have been on the actual Christmas Day. It seemed that my father’s plan had worked, and we had learned that traditional lesson that every youngster needs to know, what they call the “true meaning of Christmas”. My father, that wily little man, had taught us against the over-materialism of the holidays.

So then, here is your application: no doubt, if you are reading this article, you probably attend church somewhere, and your church has one of those typical bulletin boards with one of those quaint sayings such as, “He is the reason for the season.” But I ask you to consider yourself; despite these prevalent reminders we have in the Christian tradition, could it be that we have forgotten that “true meaning of Christmas”? Or perhaps not that we have forgotten, but that it has been so saturated in our minds that it has sunk to some deep, dark corner of our brains where we rarely look or contemplate, swept under the rug of our cognitive room?

There is nothing wrong with presents and giving and such. But if the focal point of Christmas is Christ, then let us keep that the primary focus, and leave everything else as peripheral; significant, yes, but not dominant. If we want to focus on presents instead of Christ presenting Himself incarnate to a needy world, then let’s name it something else.  That would be a lot more pleasing to God than us being so hypocritical as to claim a day as “His” day while we focus on everything but.

Let me end in saying that if it were my birthday, and everyone came to my party expecting others to give them something, and I was left in a corner somewhere without so much as a “happy birthday” or at least some type of acknowledgement, I’d be pretty upset.