And so when Christmas rolled around in 1984, one of my guys in Stan/Eval was having a party. He came to me and asked if I would be willing to play Santa. My first thought was, “Will this Santa suit make my ass look fat?” Then I thought, “Hey, this just might be fun,” and so I agreed.
The party was held on a Friday night, somewhere around 2030 hours (that’s 8:30PM in ROTC time). I told Sue to go ahead and head on over to the kid’s house; that I would be along soon thereafter. That gave me time to get dressed, and have a few “pops,’ to prime the pump.
I had an idea where the kid lived, but not exactly. “However,” I thought to myself, “with a lot of cars parked around a specific house in a small housing area, how hard can it be?” So off I went. Ho, ho,ho…
It didn’t take long before I found his place – “Ahhh, you clever one, grasshopper,” I thought to myself. I got out of my car, and picked up the bag of ‘goodies’ I had put together – and I headed up to the door. I didn’t want to go in empty handed – it was Christmas after all.
As I got closer I could hear the festive Christmas music and chatter coming from inside the house. I opened the door, and called out “Ho, ho, ho,” as I stepped in. This was followed shortly thereafter by a “Holy crap!” under my breath – I was in the wrong house! I didn’t know a soul!
“Hey look, it’s Santa,” someone called out.
“Merry Christmas Santa!” someone else yelled.
“Santa, would you like a drink?” another asked. Boy did I ever!
Soon there was a Budweiser in my hand and I became caught up in it all. I took a seat and began handing out gifts. It wasn’t long before some gal was sitting in my lap, and I was having a ball! But then it dawned on me that I still had many miles to go before I was done for the night…
I got up, thanked everyone and wished them all a Merry Christmas. Then I was on my way. I eventually found the party I was suppose to be at; I knew this because Sue was there. And that was that, or so I thought.
A week or so later Sue came in from work and asked, “Exactly how many Christmas parties did you go to the other night?”
“Why?” I asked, knowing it best not to admit to anything without background info.
“Well,” she continued, “the postman at school gave me this picture.”
Yep, that’s me, and I can’t tell you who anyone else is! Wouldn’t have a clue! But everyone seems to be having a good time…
I think today this would be called, “Busted!” Until I saw the picture, I had forgotten all about the visit… then I had to laugh. It was pretty funny; but then I suppose you had to have been there.