My Christmas Memories

Santa and Grandmother

There are so many more memories, but skipping forward in time many years, some of my best memories are the two years after my grandfather passed away. It was just me, and Grandmother and Rachel then. Now we had never really been taught to believe in Santa Claus, although I always kind of did. But that first year, 1991, we decided to go to the mall on Christmas Eve. We went to the El Paseo Mall in Santa Barbara, and it was just the most perfect day. Well, of course it was perfect. This is California. The sun was shining bright on green mountains, the sky was blue, the air was warm. And the mall was just so beautifully decorated. There was a huge tree in the outdoor center of the mall. And it was decorated with gigantic plastic balls in turquoise, purple and hot pink. Oh, my goodness, I thought it was the most gorgeous tree I had ever seen. I loved those colors. They stood out so perfectly in the California sun.

Next we went to see Santa Claus and have our picture taken with him. And there was my little Grandmother, who had always said she didn’t believe in Santa, holding out her hand to him, and smiling and saying things like “Santa Dear.” And Santa? Well, if there ever was a real Santa, I was sure I had met him. I mean, he really, really looked like Santa. He had a real beard and white hair, and while he was not as fat as you would have expected Santa to be, he was certainly jolly enough to make up for it. He had twinkling blue eyes, and he laughed so jovially when my Grandmother talked to him, and he gave her a big hug. I swear to this day, he really was Santa.

After that, we browsed around the mall for awhile. I went to my favorite store, which was The Nature Company. They have science projects, and dinosaurs, and pictures of the Universe. And grow your own gardens, and intellectual puzzles. Gosh, I could stay in that store for hours. But Grandmother and Rachel were getting hungry. So we wandered down to Nordstrom’s and had lunch in their little coffee shop. Then we bought Lady Godiva chocolates just because we could.

Finally it was time to head back home. A long, 2 hour drive. We stopped at Santa Claus Lane on the way back for date shakes. We all love date shakes, and that is the only place close to us to get them. They don’t really compare to the ones you can get in Indio, but they are better than nothing.