A Santa Story

My family thought this story of how I found out the truth about Santa was very amusing.

One Christmas when I was in 1st or 2nd grade, in addition to the stockings being stuffed and all the gifts, there was an old cane propped next to the fireplace on Christmas morning.

"Is that Santa's cane?!" My sister and I shrieked.
"Maybe.." Mom replied. She also said to leave it there.
"Is he going to come back and get it!?!" we asked.
"Maybe." she said again.

Sure enough, a few weeks later it disappeared. The following year the cane appeared again, this time with a nice Christmas ribbon tied to it. The above conversation happened again. Now at this time, I personally was wondering how Santa could accidentally leave his cane at our house 2 years in a row, since he does visit millions of houses. But just as before he came and got it a few weeks later. That is, "He might have." said Mom.

Summer of the next year we moved to a new house. This house had a bedroom that had a very large closet, not a walk-in, but one that was almost like a narrrow hallway. We had only lived there a few weeks and my sister and I were playing with my brother, who was a toddler at the time, while my mom was doing some unpacking. My brother was having fun running in and out of the large closet. All of a sudden he came toddling out holding that Christmas cane, it still had the ribbon on it and everything. I stood there in shock at what I was seeing. That wasn't Santa's cane! I really feel like I got over it rather quickly though, since the story didn't really make sense anyway and of all the pictures I've seen of Santa, I've never seen him with a cane.

However, I remember my sister being terribly upset, which made me upset. (I always had to do what she did.) We had a family discussion about it that evening.
"You lied to us!" my sister said to my mom. "You said that it was Santa's!"
"No, I didn't, I said 'maybe'." Mom explained.

It's true. She did say "maybe" and that was all. The rest we filled in ourselves. That's how kids think. I see it firsthand with my own kids.

At my house, whenever I answer one of Tommy's questions with "Maybe." He replies, "Maybe means yes!"