Santa is a year-round gift
In the countdown to the holidays, the Star is sharing readers’ stories of their favourite holiday baubles. Today: a Santa Claus that decorates a mantle year-round.
This Santa Claus is about 55 years old. I was 6 or 7 when my dad took me shopping to get a Christmas gift for my mom. I spied Santa Claus and was sold.
Dad tried to talk me out of it; I think he suspected that the whole reason I wanted to buy it was because I liked it. He wanted me to choose something more personal for my mom: perfume, or earrings. But I couldn’t be swayed. When my mom opened her present, she did what any mother would do: She ooh’d and aah’d about how nice it was and said thank you.
She is now 89. About 10 years ago, she was downsizing, moving into a seniors’ apartment. Santa came up and she said, “You may as well take him, because I know how much you like him.”
Santa Claus stays on my mantle year round. I couldn’t bear to put him in a container with all the other ornaments and shut the lid on him. He’s not just an ornament to me anymore. When you look at something like that, it takes you back.
I already told my son and daughterin-law that I will come back to haunt them if they don’t preserve it. A lot of stuff will end up at Value Village, but my Santa better not. Sharon Melnychuk and her husband are retired and live in Oshawa. They have a son and two grandsons.