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Kids, if you’re reading, stop here. But if you insist: Santa’s not real.

Sure, Santa’s a nice story and all, yet I wonder why we try to keep the Santa dream alive at all costs, even well past the stage when our once little ones begin to develop facial and body hair. As a case in point, my fifth grade daughter assures me that there persists a strict omertà around any is-Santa-real chatter in her classroom. Fifth grade, people!

I sussed out the Santa ruse at a young age. The sheer logistics of it all just didn’t add up. One Claus, one night, billions of kids, elves making toys exactly the same as the ones I could buy at Children’s Palace on Veterans Blvd. in Kenner, etc. Only idiots could swallow all that malarkey!

My little brother was a true believer in Santa Claus. Through middle school, I believe. Magnanimous older sibling that I was, I never tried to burst his Saint Nick bubble––in part because I enjoyed seeing him trust in Santa so much and be let down just as hard. You see, my brother placed such faith in Santa that he didn’t feel the need to relay to my parents any kind of Christmas list. One year on Christmas Eve, in fact, after my mom and dad had miraculously coaxed some kind of itemization from my brother a couple weeks prior, he blithely exclaimed at the last minute that he wanted a completely different collection of presents, a shift in strategy that he disclosed only to Santa in a communication that would remain private between the two of them.

Guess who was crying on Christmas morning? Hint: it rhymes with “not Jim.”

I never cried on Christmas because I left nothing to chance. The Sears Wish Book was manna from heaven. It would arrive every year to our house in late October, after which I’d ask my parents how much money Santa would be spending on me that year. Quite helpfully, then, I would present my parents with my wish list from the Wish Book, complete with pagination and catalog numbers. The sum total of my gift haul, including shipping and handling, was always within a dollar of my Santa spending limit. Cue the Jakov Smirnoff voice: what a country!

Thanks to the magic of the internet, you can peruse the same exact Wish Book I held in my smudgy hands circa 1984. Here! If you flip through page by page, you’ll find that things get hot and heavy around p. 574. Oh, baby!

Throughout my childhood years, I’d typically ask for (and receive) Christmas toys such as:
–– Masters of the Universe (i.e, He-Man).
–– Lots of G.I. Joe’s and Transformers.
–– M.A.S.K. cars and trucks. (An underrated toy collection, kind of a cross between G. I. Joe and Transformers.)
–– Construx sets. (Building motorized space dinosaurs. Because obvious.)

It was truly a golden age. However! For a number of years, the one toy that I wanted most of all never came, since it was always outside of Santa’s budget. It was a die cast, giant Voltron robot. Based on the kids' cartoon, Voltron was a mega robotic gladiator that would only combine together in the darkest of hours (read: every episode) from five separately piloted robotic lions. The show itself was wonderful, and the toy replicas did it full justice.

Ebay (motto: “Where Vintage Toys Never Die, But Wallets and Marriages Do”) has plenty of Voltron figures for resale. Guys, choose wisely.

I knew that Voltron was out of Santa’s price range, but that didn’t stop me from constantly asking my folks for it anyway. To their credit, my parents were consistent in letting me know that Voltron was too expensive and that I wouldn’t be receiving it. Nevertheless, for Christmas after Christmas, in my heart of hearts I would whisper, “This is the year. Even though my mom and dad won’t admit it, Voltron is coming.” Every morning of December 25th, then, for each midsize to large box I’d unwrap, I’d think, “This is Voltron.”

But Voltron never found his way under my tree.

Looking back on it, though, Voltron was the best Christmas present I never received––and that’s not only in retrospect. I was plenty well off as a kid, but I intuited it as valuable that I needed to mull over the reality that some presents were simply too much money for us, and that I couldn’t magically have whatever I wanted.

I hope that my own children glean from me a similarly nuanced Christmas ethos, that although their mother and I love them deeply, there are some things we can afford to buy them, and some not.

I sense that the spirit of the first Christmas likewise involves such ideas. The liturgical season wrapped up in this holiday, Advent, commemorates the arrival of Jesus of Nazareth to earth and yet, too, names a sacred space of profound emptiness, waiting, and longing. As we celebrate the intial coming of Jesus to our world, we await still his return. In the meantime, everything is not yet the way it’s supposed to be. We seek but don’t find; we want but don’t have. Life is a Christmas tree missing a Voltron.

May you in large part get what you’ve asked for this Christmas. And for what’s missing, know that there’s a place within the story of Jesus for that, too.

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