The Burden of Power Series

 

Story Notes:

Set in The Price of Knowledge/The Burden of Power universe

Challenge: Christmas

Rating: G

 

The Tale of a Rented Santa

 

             Some people don’t believe in miracles.  They jeer at the idea of angels or divine intervention.  I was one of those people.

             The name’s Brad.  You don’t know me.  There’s nothing special to know.  I’m just your average guy.  A wife, two kids, decent job.  Every December, I hire myself out as Santa Claus at children’s Christmas parties.  I started the Santa Claus jig while I was in high school.  Nothing noble or anything.  I’d just bought my first car, so I needed the money.  But I found myself enjoying it.  I like the wonder I see on kids’ faces, their delighted laughs at my “ho-ho-ho” and the way I can make my belly jiggle, their shy smiles as they tell me their wishes.  It makes me feel close to heaven.  So I’ve kept it up.

             That’s how I meet Daniel.

             Cute kid.  Six years old, so I’m told, but he must be on the short side of the scale because he doesn’t look much older than my five-year-old.  And bright.  Beyond a doubt, the brightest kid I’ve ever seen.

             Daniel also has the weirdest family situation you can imagine.  He’s an orphan, apparently, who’s been adopted by this older guy.  A military colonel, probably washed up and sitting a desk somewhere.  There’s also this blonde woman.  Not the mom, just someone who works for the colonel guy and ended up as Daniel’s unofficial aunt.  The creepiest one, though, is this big, black dude named T-Murray.  I swear, that’s his name, although sometimes they drop the T and just call him Murray.  I don’t know how he fits into the family.  He’s like the butler or the bodyguard or something.  He watches Daniel like a hawk and calls everybody by their full name.  He wears a Santa hat all night long, but if he’s trying for Christmas spirit, it doesn’t work because he never cracks a smile.

             The Christmas party at the orphanage is all Daniel’s idea.  He’d planned the whole thing: bonus checks for the adults who work there, new shoes and a toy for each kid, a turkey dinner with all the trimmings and a tree loaded with decorations, and me, your rented Santa Claus.  Apparently, he’s paying for it all too.  I overhear him ask the colonel if they should buy a present for the cooks who prepared the meal, and the colonel tells him, “Up to you, Danny.  It’s your money.”  Kid must have fallen into the family fortune when his folks died.

             Homeless shelters, orphanages, and hospitals are not my favorite places for Santa Claus appearances.  It’s pretty hard to “ho-ho-ho” around kids who’ve forgotten how to hope, much less laugh.  It’s tough to listen to Christmas wishes like “I want to stop being sick” or “I want a mommy and daddy.”  You see why I had trouble believing in miracles?

             But this party is a grand success.  I’ve never had so much fun.  Daniel’s the perfect little host.  Joy radiates from him like sunbeams, and it’s contagious.  When he talks to people, they light up.

             When the kids get in line to visit with “Santa Claus,” the blonde woman urges Daniel forward as well.  Daniel makes sure the other kids go first, and after I’ve talked to them all, he still hangs back.  For the first time, he looks uncertain.  He glances around, gnawing on his lower lip.  The colonel detaches himself from a group of kids he’s been entertaining with juggling tricks, kneels to Daniel’s eye level, and speaks quietly to him.

             In the end, they come up together.  The colonel stays behind Daniel, a hand on the kid’s shoulder gently propelling him closer.

             Now, there’s a knack to being Santa Claus.  You gotta adjust yourself to each kid.  You gotta be the Santa Claus he or she imagines you to be.  It takes a little time and a lot of intuition.  It doesn’t work so well at those shindigs they have at the big-city malls, but this party is pretty laidback.  I figure I can take the time for Daniel.  He seems like a special kid, you know.  Worth the effort.

             “Hello there, Daniel.”  I gentle my voice because he looks a little skittish, like he might bolt if I do anything sudden.

             “Hi,” he whispers back.

             “Do you believe in Santa Claus, Daniel?”  Six to eight is that teeter-totter age.  Sometimes they believe, sometimes they don’t.  And without that spark of belief, anything I say is meaningless.

             He shrugs a shoulder.  “I don’t know.  I never met a Santa Claus before.”

             Okay, that’s weird.  Maybe his dead folks were those ultra-reality people who thought their kid should be told the truth about everything, including the identity of Santa Claus.  But then again, Daniel hasn’t said that he doesn’t believe.  I guess he’s more of a fence-sitter.

             “I heard lots of stories, though,” Daniel says, starting to look less overwhelmed and warming to the subject.  “Sam left out cookies for you when she was a little girl, and Mister General said you gived him a bike once ’cept I don’t know how you got it down the chiminy, and Janet’s house don’t have a chiminy so how did Cassie get her presents?  And how come you--”

             The colonel’s hand squeezes gently.  “Let’s not talk the man’s ear off, Daniel.”

             “Okay.  But I wanna know about the chiminies, Jack.”

             The colonel sighs, and I peg Daniel as particularly stubborn when it comes to wanting to know something.

             “Let’s see if I can explain the chimneys,” I offer.  “Do you believe in magic?”

             Daniel considers that, tilting his head and studying me carefully.  After a moment, he says slowly, “I believe things can *look like* magic.”

             “But everything has an explanation?”

             Daniel nods.  “Prob’ly.  But sometimes it’s hard to ’splain things that look like magic, and people don’t always believe anyway.”

             “That’s right.  What I do with the chimneys is the same way.  It looks like magic.  It’s not, really, but the explanation is pretty complicated, so I just tell people it’s magic.”

             He seems satisfied with that.

             I pat my knee.  “How about you come up here and tell me what you want for Christmas?”

             He climbs up, and I can barely feel his weight.  Kid’s as light as air.  Then he stares at me.  It makes me uncomfortable, the way he seems to gaze all the way into my soul, but I let him look his fill.  Maybe he’s one of those kids who needs time to adjust to new situations.

             “I heard what you told Julie,” he says after a while.  He points to the girl with the lisp.  She’s latched onto the big, black dude, who’s surprisingly gentle with her.  I remember Julie’s wish with a pang.  She’d asked for a family.  “You said extra-special wishes like hers were so beautiful that it sometimes takes you longer to get them right.”

             “Do you have a wish like that?”

             Daniel shakes his head.  “I already have everything I want.”

             He swivels a bit on my knee so he can look up at the colonel with a brilliant smile.  The colonel gives a crooked smile in return and ruffles the kid’s hair.  When Daniel turns his attention back to me, I notice the colonel swiping moisture from his eyes.  I wonder at their history and how long they’ve been together.  Daniel seems pretty happy for a kid who’s lost his folks.

 

 

Back to Little Danny Home                                                                                On to part 2>>

 

 

 

Disclaimer:  The Stargate characters all belong to Gekko Film Company, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions, MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Showtime, Sci Fi Channel, and Stargate SG-1 Prod. Ltd. Partnership.  This fanfic is not intended to infringe on any of those rights and is meant solely for the purpose of entertainment.  All other characters, the story idea, and the story itself are the sole property of the author.