MY memories of Santa Claus never came from tales told at bedtime; they came from Coca-Cola ads. Or, so I would find out much, much later.
Our father fulfilled a requisite for all fathers that we now only see in films: someone who would tuck his children to bed by telling countless tales to them. The only difference is that the cinematic models would have the kids gently and cutely drowsing off even before the narrative is over, and the father would cover them in their own blankets, tiptoe to the doorway, cast a cloying glance once more at the heirs to his wealth and masculinity, and flick off the switch. Then darkness comes over.
In our case, especially our youngest then, Carlo (our only sister, Lilibeth, came much later), when we were still in the island of Ticao, could outlast all storytellers. He would be fully awake after one story (I presume now the story was so interesting it awakened him more) and would thus request for one more story, and then another. Older, my Manong Pempe and I had already lost our power to persuade our father to tell more tales. The whole Grimms’ Fairy Tales, the Arthurian legends, Daedalus and Icarus, Sohrab and Rustum, and the most fascinating of them all—Perceval and the Quest for the Holy Grail. There was no place for Santa Claus in bedtime stories.
But, one day, Santa Claus came to us in visual splendor.
My father, having relocated to a small island from the mainland Bikol, had no formal job then. It would take some years before he could become the municipal treasurer, a post he left for a bigger job back in the mainland. That, however, is another saga. But he could draw and he could paint. Marvelously. As in really painting on church walls, on canvases for a fee. He would draw what were called by teachers as devices, which were educational props. One day early December, he disassembled on the floor of our sala a cigarette carton box. It was quite a spread. Beige. He next lined up beside the carton five or six small cans of house paint. For several days, he was doing round, curving lines of red and white. The yellows were mixed with green and the black with white, then red. Soon, the rotund face of a bearded man was smiling at us, his eyes squinting with joy. He was Santa Claus, my father said. He had the most innocent face despite his age. He smiled at us all throughout as we entered the house, on the wall, before we descended to the dining hall, an area a bit lower than the rest of the house.
I do not remember us having an elaborate belen or crèche; what we had was always this set of figures called the Three Kings. Melchior, Gaspar, Balthazar. We knew their names. I know my father painted them using the same house paint on another carton box. Embedded in my memory though because of the questions I asked about them were my father’s interpretations of the Magi as shadows on the wall. For this, he would use black illustration boards, staple three of them lengthwise and from them carve three figures on a camel. We knew they were camels and not horses because of the hump on their backs. My father made sure that was clear.
On the floor, after a week, I noticed that the three figures were not of the same size. Did my father miscalculate? I could not tell him but I did not like what was being completed. One of the Magi was big, so big, even in black you could sense his features, the command in those arms tugging at the reins for his animal, while the third was a tiny figure. We woke up one morning with the Three Kings already on their journey—Gaspar was closer to where we were standing; Melchior in the middle was a full figure of a king astride his camel, and far in the distance was Balthazar. Only one was pointing to the Star, which was placed on the end of that wall, bracketed by two huge windows. It was what you may call “epic.”
Was the one pointing to the Star the wisest of them all? Not really, my father responded. It would be boring to have all of them using the same gesture. He was so sure of what he was saying, I felt he must have heard this fact from another wise man. The fact is, my father continued, they were walking toward one direction. They all knew what the Star was all about. That made them Magi. It would take them more days to come together. And so each morning, I would look at the wall and imagine where they were already.
Now, what is Christmas without a Christmas tree? The task of building a tree fell on our aunts. With salt and soap and huge tubs, they whisked and whisked the ingredients until they came up with the whitest of snow to wrap around the tree. Every week or so, they would whip up more snow to maintain the wonderland of our Christmas tree. It was the perfect snow. That Christmas, we received not only toys from Santa Claus but also letters. Written in trembling cursive letters (Santa is an old man, Mama and Papa whispered to us), Santa Claus had a simple message for me: Always be a good boy, Tito.
We never saw that Santa Claus again until we moved to the big city. Up there, one chilly December day, on a huge advertising panel was Papa’s Santa Claus. The jolly, wise old man. This time he was holding a bottle of Coca Cola, with “Merry Christmas” emblazoned so big you could see them from the moon.