“I Told Santa I Was Jewish” by Arianna Stern

When I was six, my mom took me to this water park with her best friend and her best friend’s son. His name was Alex, and he was also six years old. His family was non-Jewish and fairly religious. I remember we had an exchange once, while my family celebrated Chanukah, where he asked me,

“Do you believe in Jesus even a little? Because it would make me sad if you didn’t believe in Jesus, even a little.” I didn’t even really know what he was talking about. I said yes, so he wouldn’t be sad. Meaning, Yeah sure, I believe that Jesus was a real dude.

For reasons unbeknownst to me even now, this water park had a resident Santa. He wore a velvet suit and not board shorts, as was the local custom for similarly pot-bellied men. Alex wanted to sit on Santa’s lap, and my mom said that as long as we were waiting in line, I could see Santa, too.

I remember being startled at the length of the Santa line. Writing this, now, I wonder if kids can still believe in Santa after Google. At the time, I couldn’t quite figure if they all believed in him. It seemed that they had to suspend disbelief quite a bit in order to believe that—

YES, this is the real Santa Claus, from the North Pole, who found work in a remote part of Wisconsin specifically so that he could see me, and
YES, he cares deeply that I want a Sega Genesis and a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog, and
YES, he will remember all of this without any sort of recording device, and
YES, he will fulfill all my desires, if only I act virtuously when he’s not around to observe me.

Meanwhile, the parents photographed their children on the lap of a strange man with the sort of complicity that seems borderline sick, at least to an outsider.

The other alternative was that children saw Santa, knowing all the while that he wasn’t real. They wanted to placate their parents, or drop a hint as to which gifts they wanted. Expressing their emotions in such a weird and circuitous way—to a water park Santa—probably gave gentiles invaluable practice in being repressed for their entire adult lives.

But at the time, my main concern was not whether Santa was real. In my mind, Santa was neither real nor fake, but rather inapplicable to me, like the weather in Hawaii. I sat down in his lap, and he asked me if I’d been a good little girl, and I said yes, and he said,
    “What do you want for Christmas?” and I said,
    “I’m Jewish,” because it was relevant to the question he asked.

He told me it didn’t matter, as long as I was a good person, which is kind of bullshit.  In retrospect, I suppose there’s some possibility that Santa neared my childhood home that year, but was too intimidated to enter, because he was unaccustomed to all the brisket and yelling.