A Slightly Different Christmas

Santa's Best Christmas Present Ever

So as we all know, Santa has a lot of stand-ins, because he's got his hands full, especially around this time of year. This is one Santa's story. We'll call him Santa.

Santa went to a preschool to be Santa as a surprise for two groups of kids. One group was maybe 3 years old. They were all wide-eyed to be next to Santa and told him all kinds of things about what they wanted for Christmas, and the preschool teachers had them doing all their school activities, and everything was fine, and the kids hugged Santa and went back to class. Apparently unicorns are in vogue this season for Christmas present requests.

The second group was a bit older. Four- and five-year olds. They came in, Santa surprised them, and all the kids started into their preschool activities, the first one of which was to stretch out.

Except one kid. There are always a few who don't like doing organized activities, and there were a few boys standing there not doing them, because boys.

But one little girl, we'll call her Sarah. Sarah was standing there, head down, arms at her sides, about to cry.

Santa said "honey are you ok?"

Sarah didn't answer. Sarah also didn't move. But you could see that Sarah had been put in an untenable social position. She didn't want to do the same thing the other kids were doing, but she didn't know what else to do, and she just stood there, trying desperately not to burst into tears.

Santa's heart tore wide open. And Santa knelt down in front of Sarah and opened his arms, and Sarah tucked up into them, and just stood there.

One of the teachers said, "oh, she just doesn't like to participate."

And in Santa's head, he turned his head and looked at the teacher and snarled "THEN DON'T MAKE HER."

Santa, you see, was diagnosed with autism in 2003, and had already lived a lifetime of being ostracized and discriminated against for it, and wasn't about to watch somebody else be put through that hell.

In real life, Santa just held Sarah and then pulled back and looked her in the eye and said "you just don't like to do what the rest of them are doing, do you?"

Sarah shook her head.

Santa looked at her, and smiled, and said "I don't either."

Sarah's eyes got really big. Santa didn't normally show up and encourage her at all, let alone agree that there was no reason for her to be miserable.

Santa stood up, looked around the room at the rest of the kids, and bent over and said to Sarah, "I'm going to stand here while they do their stuff. If you want to stand next to me, you go right ahead."

Sarah stayed about two inches from Santa the rest of the time.

And that might have been enough for most Santas.

But this Santa meant every word he said, about he didn't like to do what the other kids were doing either. And while all this other stuff was going on, he leaned over and said, "Sarah, it's okay if you don't like to do what the other kids are doing. Don't misbehave, don't fuss, don't cry, just stand there and wait until whatever it is is over. Okay?"

Sarah, who hadn't said one word up to this point, whispered "okay."

And smiled.

And Santa looked at Sarah and said, "and if anybody ever says different to you, you tell them to come talk to me."

And Sarah smiled again.

Sarah is second from the center in the glo-orange pullover. When you zoom in you can see that she still doesn't want to be there, but at least she's not as miserable as she was.

After the kids left, the teachers told Santa that Sarah was a foster kid that had been through pretty miserable circumstances and barely ever interacted with anybody.

And Santa went home and cried.