Santa and the Oil Heater

A close call for the Big Man gives one believer the chills

Our house had no fireplace or chimney. Instead, my father installed a large oil heater in the living room to keep us warm. It had a smoke pipe vented through the roof much like a wood stove, and it produced enough heat to warm the living room, dining room and kitchen.

But the bedrooms were always cold. We relied on a mountain of blankets to keep us warm while we slept. My sister and I devised a trick that would not only get us a bit of extra heat before bed, but also prolong our staying-up time by another five or

10 minutes. Each night at

8 p.m.—our bedtime—we grabbed our bed pillows and rested them against the oil heater to warm them.

About a week before Christmas, I was warming my pillow when it struck me that the heater’s pipe would be a tight squeeze for a portly gentleman with a sack of toys. Over the next few days, I worried about how Santa was going to negotiate this narrow passage. What if he couldn’t get through? And if he did, how would he get out of the heater, which had no door? A little surprised that my parents hadn’t thought of this problem before, I brought it up at dinner one evening.

“Santa could get burned alive,” I said.

My uncle, who was visiting at the time, spoke up. “I guess you’ll have to

leave the back door unlocked.”

He had to be making fun of me. It was ludicrous to think Santa would know to come in the back door after he landed on the roof. How would he know it was open?

My mother put me out of my misery. “Santa is magic,” she said. “Don’t worry. He’ll find his way in with no problem.”

With that worry behind me, I returned to my normal pre-Christmas activities, the most important of which was trying to get the days to go faster. We still had four to go. It felt like four centuries.

Somehow, Christmas Eve arrived. My father allowed us to stay up to watch holiday shows. Later we lay in bed, unable to sleep.

“Kids! It’s Christmas!” My mother’s voice reached my ears on the one day of the year when she didn’t have to drag me out of bed. I dashed to the living room. It was full of smoke!

My father was by the oil heater, ordering everyone to open windows and doors. For a split second, a horrific vision came to me. Santa’s magic had failed him! He got stuck in the heater after all. Panic-stricken, I looked at the Christmas tree, where a mound of presents waited. That was good, at least—he must have made it inside OK but got stuck on the way out.

After a brief moment of concern about what would happen next Christmas—with no Santa Claus—I heard my father say that the blockage was cleared. It wasn’t Santa, but a simple back draft that sometimes happens with oil heaters during a cold start.

I drifted over to the tree, where my sister handed me my first gift.

“It’s from your Aunt Fay,” my mother explained.

I was so relieved that Santa hadn’t burned up that I didn’t even mind getting a sweater. •