There was no snow in the Chicago area at Christmastime in 1952, and I was worried sick about it.
I had somehow decided that Santa's sleigh could not travel without snow. It did not enter my six-year-old mind that Santa Claus also visited places all over the world where it never snowed.
The closer it got to Christmas, the more I fretted, until finally some adult – I really don’t remember who – told me that when there is no snow, Santa Claus comes in a helicopter. A helicopter, after all, can land on a rooftop just as easily as Santa’s sleigh.
That calmed me down.
It was traditional in our family to open presents on Christmas Eve – but only after dinner and after the dishes were done. We were at Grandma and Grandpa’s house that night, and because his heavy schedule was complicated somewhat by his slightly less mystical mode of transport, Santa was to make his delivery to us relatively early in the evening so that we could open the gifts he left too.
I was sitting at the kitchen table with my aunt and my father and probably some other people I don’t now recall, nearly unable to endure the excitement, when suddenly -- I heard it! I heard the helicopter! Santa was here!
Just as suddenly, the sound of the helicopter stopped. Wide-eyed, I waited nearly breathless, listening to the relative silence. Then again, the helicopter’s engine started, but after a few seconds, it was gone.
It was magical.
It was my grandfather in the basement, starting and stopping an outboard motor he had set up in a large drum of water.
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