I recall having known “about” Santa Claus since immigrating here at age 6, but as my family wasn’t Christian, Christmas was more or less an excuse to have festive group gatherings with friends and family for dinner. The host family would decorate their house with a tree, people would bring presents for each other, but we still all ate homecooked Chinese food. It wasn’t any different from any other get-together, except for the presents and the decorations.

The first year my older cousin Olivia came to the country, we had such a Christmas gathering at my Aunt Jessica’s house. 7 or 8 elementary school kids (myself included) ran around playing in the living room, parents sat and conversed at the dinner table, and my cousin Olivia was the in-between teenager without a peer group. She kept busy, however. After dinner, I soon heard rumors from my cousins Diana and Jennifer (whose house we were at) that Olivia was, right then, undergoing a transformation in their parents’ bedroom to become Santa Claus. I had never seen Santa before. I mean, aside from the two-dimensional depictions on TV, greeting cards, and picture books. I’m not sure it even occurred to me that Santa was supposed to be male. But I was sworn to secrecy and I awaited “Santa”‘s arrival as people started gathering in the living room for present-time. Soon, the doorbell rang. “Eh?” Aunt Jessica said in dramatic mock surprise (in Mandarin). “Who could that be? I’m not expecting anyone else.” Someone got the door, and a huge commotion was heard. My aunt exclaimed “WOW! You all look who’s here!” just as a bearded Olivia in a red suit sauntered into the room. I watched the jaw of one boy in particular hit the carpet.

My first time meeting him, Santa was enthusiastic, knew things about all of us, had great skin, and spoke Chinese. He didn’t stay long, and I played along. When he stood to leave, he explained that he has many many other boys and girls to deliver presents to, admonished us little ones to be good and listen to our parents, and walked out the front door as jollyish as he’d walked in. The stunned little boy was still quiet, in awe. He walked a few steps up to the tree, and reached up to a branch. “Santa’s beard is in the tree,” he said, still seemingly unable to blink.
“What?” Aunt Jessica asked, walking over to him as the room recovered.
He pulled a little piece of cotton (yes, as from cottonballs) off the tree, showing it to my aunt, mouth still agape.
“Oh, Santa’s beard,” Aunt Jessica said nonchalantly. “You can keep that for him and give it back to him next year.”
The boy stared at the beard in his hand, evidence that something magical had happened. “Okay,” he whispered, very very carefully putting it in his pocket.

We finished opening our presents. All the kids got a Snoopy pencil box that was rounded and looked like a giant crayon, and the top unscrewed and tons of cute pencils, erasers, sharpeners, etc. poured out. I also got a little stationery notepad with a faded photo of a green blade of grass as the background, drops of liquid round and glistening on the blade’s surface. A haiku was written in small print on the bottom corner:
Dewdrop, let me cleanse
In your brief, sweet waters
These dark hands of life. (c) Peyo
(Years later, I would be frustrated and befuddled that the middle line is missing a syllable. It seems like it’d be so easy to fix; “In your brief AND sweet waters,” for example. I still have most of the items, buried somewhere in a box perhaps at my parents’ house. I no longer have the pale green notepad, but I had long since memorized the haiku as I slowly learned English.)

Suddenly, the doorbell rang again and some moments later in came my cousin Olivia, beardless, stomach-pillow-less. “I heard Santa was just here!” The kids and some adults confirmed this. “I can’t believe I missed Santa! I only went out for a few moments! I must be the most unlucky girl in the world! Why am I so unlucky?” she griped convincingly. “You must tell me about him!” So the younger kids, plus the boy, filled her in on what she missed as the adults smiled at each other, a trick successfully pulled off.

My cousin Olivia remembers that night as a fun time, and was incredulous when I brought it up a last week. She was amazed I remembered so much detail, as she didn’t. Looking back, I don’t think I appreciated how much work she put into being there for us. Even that day alone, the costume must’ve taken quite a bit of preparation.
Olivia: I am never ready for Christmas! We do not celebrate Christmas; My mom used to tell me that we are Chinese so we do not care for Christmas……also she does not celebrate Chinese New Year, because we are consider as “Americans” now…………..I realize that I do love her idea for that because I am a mom now…HeeHeeeeee!
Me: There’s a constant battle in our household because I say I don’t want to lie to my kids so I’m not going to tell them that Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, etc. are “real,” I’ll just let them believe what they want from what they learn in school or on their own. [Mr. W] thinks I’m evil. And this kid doesn’t even exist yet!
Although, I can tell my kid that YOU are Santa Claus because when I was 6, you WERE. I still remember that day well. And Santa Claus spoke Chinese, left a piece of cotton beard on the Christmas tree, and you came running in late to find that you had just missed Santa Claus so you must be the unluckiest girl in the world. Haha!
Olivia: You amaze me for remember all that! We had so much fun that year! I really think I am so lucky to have you,Jen, and Diana. You are closer to me than Oliver. So matter what ; I know I can count on you and you can count on me. Love you so much… Dear Cindy!
Me: Before you could say that, we all counted on you first, for the trips to the swap meets, the trips to Disneyland, Knott’s, Magic Mountain, for thinking of us when you travel and see interesting little souvenirs, for taking me to Cal Poly to class one day to make college “real” for me (I still remember the professor’s lecture about a Jesus story, I must’ve been 12), so much that there’s no room here to list them all. Thanks for being our big sister all those years.
Olivia: My eyes are wet! You touch my heart! How come that I do not remember taking you to Cal Poly? All I can say is that I am so proud to have you as my beautiful sister!

A recent-ish photo of Olivia (she’s the one in the middle, obviously):

This year, almost 3 decades later, I made contact with my second Santa: