[Dear Readers: Usually on weekends we present the world-wide-read feature Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap – always highlighted with a photo of a slumbering critter, such as this shot-from-overhead picture of Inky, the Cocker Laureate of Texas snoozing with a full-on snore on the floor in his spot next to my writing chair in the international headquarters of Readlarrypowell.com. Our purpose is to combat insomnia. And, perhaps, that is the core of the origin of this story of two little boys and their plan to do something nobody had ever done. Were they successful? Read on and discover and, of course, have a merry Christmas. From all of us at Readlarrypowell.com]
THE SANTA PLAN
By Inky, The Cocker Laureate of Texas
There was a cold wind coming in from the north.
Perhaps it was bringing snow. There was talk on the radio and TV news.
Didn’t matter. Johnny Knowsall and his brother Jeff were ready.
They had a plan. They would get a good look at Santa this Christmas Eve. A real good look. And a picture, too.
J-One and J-Two, as their friends called them, weren’t particularly bad boys. They had a streak of what used to be called mischief but these days would be regarded as a sign that a kid was going to eventually need a lawyer.
They were not the first kids to try to snap a photo of Santa. And, during his time as The Great Deliverer, Santa had learned to dodge the lenses. He could plan, too, you know.
“Is the battery charged on the camera?” J-One asked.
“Check,” replied J-Two.
“Got the air horn?”
“Check.”
“Cold weather gear?”
“Check.”
“Walkie-talkies”
“Check.”
“Sandwiches.”
“We’ll have to split a peanut butter sandwich,” said J-Two. “I already ate the baloney.”
“Fine,” said J-One. “I’m not hungry. I’m just ready to catch Santa.”
Now, just as surely as a pair of boys can make the “Naughty List” without even knowing it, Santa can know two boy’s plan and prepare for it.
He knew exactly what to do on one block in one town where snow would be falling on Christmas Eve for the first time in 35 years. Santa also knew that a little snow would not detract the Knowsall Brothers from their mission. He would give them something to remember for Christmas.
“Set the clock and I’ll double-check it,” J-One told his brother. The clock was an old-fashioned windup alarm clock – the reliable kind that didn’t take a lot of know-how to work.
One a.m. was the wake-up time. It was nearly midnight now. They thought they would not go to sleep and they didn’t. They watched the clock, they watched the sky through their bedroom window. They watched the arrival of snow. It began in small particles that inspired each of them to ask excitedly, “Did you see that?”
Finally the flakes grew bigger – storybook flakes that covered their yard, the neighbors', the driveways and the streets. It fell fast and it fell thick.
And soon, just before the alarm would have sounded, J-One said quietly, “Turn off the clock and let’s go. No more waiting.”
Quickly they dressed in their warm winter clothing. They would pad down the hall and out the kitchen door into the yard, then along the wall of the house to the back gate.
J-One and J-Two would quickly slip into the “Santa Stand” they’d build out of two big sheets of plywood and a blue plastic tarp that was so big it would serve as the floor, the back wall and the roof at the point where the plywood met.
The wind whipped the plastic ferociously as the boys quickly assembled the stand and ducked inside to get out of the weather. They’d pulled a wagon in front of the shelter and turned it on its side to offer protection and an obscured vantage point.
From where they were, they could see the rooftop of seven homes. “He’s gotta land on one of ‘em,” J-One said. “We’ll be ready.”
As the winter wind blew snow inside the shelter, J-One worked with the digital camera to make certain it would snap pictures in the cold. He wore gloves, so his hands were warm, but his ears were getting cold even though they were inside a hood. His toes might have been feeling the cold, too.
In fact, he was getting cold through and through. So was J-Two.
It was about 2 a.m. when the snow began to ease up just a bit. It had been very enthusiastic snow. There was nothing that was not covered. Nothing. Including the rooftops. The reindeer would be able to land without making a sound. It would be another quiet delivery.
J-One was thinking about that when he nodded off for a split second and then quickly was wide away. No time had passed, he was convinced. His brother snored. He woke him with an elbow to the ribs.
“Ouch,” he said.
“Shhh. I think it’s time. Look how quiet everything is.”
In silence they looked out at the neighborhood. Nothing was moving. Christmas lights brightened the snow in front of houses. No wind was blowing. No longer could they hear the hiss of snowflakes falling on snow.
Suddenly, J-One saw something move in the slight area between houses two yards down. Not enough to make out for sure, but enough to suggest that something was going on.
“Come on,” he said, and he led J-Two quietly out of the shelter and into the yard and he dropped to one knee and held up his camera. He fired off two shots and yelled, “I got him! I got him!”
J-Two saw something that appeared to be small and orangish-brown with horns dash across the neighbor’s yard toward the alley and that was followed by a red blur.
He was sure it was a red blur.
“I saw him! I saw him!” he yelled. Lights in homes began snapping on. He and his brother, grins wide as their faces, took off toward the back door of their house just as the porch light snapped on. Their parents were awake. No doubt they had opened the door to their room and found no little boys sound asleep in their bed.
“I got him, Dad, I got him!” J-One said in a hushed voice as he and his brother came barreling into the house, leaving tracks of snow on the kitchen floor.
“We got him, Dad, we got him!” echoed J-Two.
“Got who?” asked Dad, still sleepy and wondering what in the world was going on.
“We got Santa! We got pictures of Santa!” J-One exclaimed.
Dad immediately thought of Mr. Watson two doors down, a short, chubby man with a white beard and what would have been white had if any had hung around on top of his head. And, it’s true, he could have been out in the middle of the night walking around – but not in the snow, surely.
“Was it Mr. Watson?” he asked.
“No, Dad, no! We got Santa. And a reindeer, too,”
A reindeer? He thought maybe they’d seen the Stillsons’ Great Dane Tiny.
“Was it Tiny?”
“No, Dad. Really. We got a picture of a reindeer running through the snow.”
Dad was amused by the sincerity of his boys. They really thought they had something.
He decided it was time to look at the pictures.
“Let’s go download the pictures,” he said.
The three – Dad in a robe and slippers and the boys still in their snow gear -- went to the computer, and Mom, still sleepy, but still being mom, said, “I’ll make some hot chocolate. Call me to see the photos.” She had her doubts.
Dad knew what would happen. He’d tried this when he was a kid. He used an Instamatic with a big flashcube on it that sounded like a small explosion when it fired. At three in the morning, he snapped two pictures and a week later, when he got the prints back from the drug store, all he had were photos of a tree next to a rooftop.
In a minute he’d downloaded his little boys’ photos. And what he saw made him laugh out loud.
On down the Christmas route, still delivering, Santa smiled, knowing that his helpers had successfully served as decoys and two more little boys would have a story of a cold Christmas night to tell their kids years from now.
It would be “The Time We Photographed Santa.”
And, they could click on their computers and show their friends the decoys who raced through the neighbors’ yard in the snow: a cocker spaniel in a Santa suit and an orange cat wearing plastic antlers.
The realization that they didn’t catch Santa or his reindeer overwhelmed the question, “Who puts a Cocker Spaniel in a Santa suit and antlers on a cat?”
Everybody had a merry Christmas, though the cat retained some resentment about having had to run through snow in bare paws. But Santa knew,he was a complainer cat and always, eventually, was on the "good" list.
(Author’s note: These authentic photos provided by The Santa Sighting Museum, courtesy Johnny & Jeff Knowsall Photography of Reindeer Gap, Texas.)
--- The End ---
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