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Yes, Jacob, There is a Santa Claus
Posted on May 2, 2008
Filed Under Funny, Misc |
I’m ignoring my Friday quote to tell you the best prank that has ever been played on me. My final exams are this week, so I don’t have the time to write rigorous CS/programming/math posts or search for quotes, so today (and possibly Monday) will be amusing anecdotes.
My parents have a long-standing Christmas tradition of making my sister and I wait for everything to be just perfect before we come downstairs and see the presents that had been laid out. When we were younger, my Dad would shake bells in order to announce Santa’s departure. My sister and I ran downstairs in a vain attempt to see Santa, only to have my Dad yell "You just missed him! Look at him go! Do you see him across the street?"
Obviously, little 7 year old me was suspicious. I had heard at school –to no surprise– there was no Santa, and there were a lot of holes in my Dad’s story. There was no way that my Dad was mysteriously able to see Santa. On top of that, Santa was supposed to come at midnight.
That year, I ran downstairs as fast as I could, but my Mom yelled for me to slow down, and I did, and I couldn’t prove that my Dad was the one that was ringing the bells — even when I found the bells! Santa simply left them for us. He’s a giver, after all.
That was a challenge. I was going to do the impossible. I was going to outsmart my parents the next year.
My plan was simply to practice running down the stairs as quickly as I could, in as few bounds as I could, and catch my Dad ringing the bells. My speed had almost caught him off-guard this year, and if I could actually let gravity carry me down half of the stairs, then I would land and see him. I was facing some pretty heavy constraints, in that my Dad has gotten up unimaginably earlier than I have my entire life, and my parents did not let us go downstairs on Christmas until they said so. I didn’t have access to camera technology. My only real option was to catch them in the act.
This plan is obviously weak, and paled in comparison to future plans to catch my parents playing Santa –which involved undetectable objects like bits of fishing line laid on the floor. It had a decent basis, though: I just had to surprise them. They would never expect me to practically jump down the stairs to catch my Dad pretending to be Santa.
I practiced throughout the year. I got pretty good at taking the stairs in two or three bounds and landing with nary a sound. Finally, Christmas comes, and my mom mischievously lets me go downstairs.
Jangle Jangle Jangle! goes the bells downstairs. My sister and I take off for the stairs, and I leap down the stairs in a few bounds (botched maybe a little in my excitement). I land and simultaneously look in the room triumphantly (as the bells did not stop), and I see….. a room with presents, devoid of people!
Shocked, I stared in the room for a few seconds, and then flew back upstairs to my parents room. They were lying in their bed, laughing at me. They asked if Santa had come, to which I had no reply. We went back downstairs to open presents, and Christmas continued like normal.
For years I begged them to know how they did it, and I had my own theories. There were just too many different ways that they could have done it. Tape recorders and well-placed neighbors were my two biggest suspects, but the truth turned out to be far better.
How They Did It
My parents knew that they had almost been caught when I ran down the stairs the year before. They perfectly predicted my next move: to get down the stairs as quick as I could. My parents wanted to figure out a way that they could beat me at my own game.
By providence, their bedroom was situated above the room where we opened our presents. My Dad, on Christmas Eve, ran a string out from the bedroom window, over the roof, and down to the window of the room where we would open our presents. He tied the bells on the end of the string. He said that he was worried that it wouldn’t really produce the same effect, but it worked perfectly. They could jangle it all they wanted from their room and make it sound like someone was shaking the bells in the living room.
My parents were sitting in the comfort of their own bed while I ran downstairs, puzzled over the empty room, ran back upstairs, and threw their door open in pure confusion.
They still say that the best part was the absolutely confused look on my face, knowing they had tricked me, not knowing how.
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3 Responses to “Yes, Jacob, There is a Santa Claus”
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I remember the ol’ fishing line on the carpet bit.
This put a smile on my face.
Jake it’s good to see you were smart enough to sniff out the Santa myth at such a young age. As for my stupid self, I had no clue or desire to know that Santa wasn’t real - I just loved Christmas too much.
It was not until I was 10 that I had my bubble burst. I had found a SEGA Genesis under my parents bed when I was looking for our dog. My mom was so pissed (figuring I was snooping for gifts, which I wasn’t) that she threw my whole Santa ignorance under the bus by telling me there was no such thing as Santa!
Wow. That is a fantastic story. I was never lead under such pretenses. I was told not to tell the other kids that santa wasn’t real but I was made to understand 100% that they were the ones getting me gifts not Santa. And if i wanted to belive that santa was bringing me gifts I could wait for him then. Lol I’m glad that they did that. I would have been furious at them for lying to me.