It was late at night. I was sound asleep. I heard some noise in the living room. I got out of bed. While rubbing my eyes, I walked around the room to peek around the corner to see what the noise was. There, I saw an old man, not chubby and not too tall. He was about my height (five feet), maybe a little bit taller. Not too big, but he had a round belly. His hair was white, kind of thin. He had a long, pointy white beard, about two and a half feet long. He was wearing a one-piece light brown outfit. The kind of outfit like the cowboys used to wear as underwear, one long piece of brownish outfit.
When I saw this old man, he was by the window, about to go out. I reached out my hand and yelled out, “Wait! Wait! St. Nicholas! Wait!” But he just stepped out of my window and disappeared.
Now, understand this, I was neither Catholic nor Christian. I grew up in a Catholic school because that was the only school for me to attend. I grew up in a very strong Buddhist environment, burning incense every day. Since I grew up in a Catholic school, we prayed the Our Father every day. We prayed before we ate. We prayed every night before we went to bed. We crossed our hearts every time we prayed. So, even after I grew up, all this remained with me. I prayed to Our Father in the evening before I went to bed. When I woke up in the morning, I would put up three incense sticks to burn before I went to work. I prayed every time I ate, every meal, any time, wherever. All was well.
I grew up with Santa everywhere I went during Christmas time. It was fun, a lot of fun. Santa was always giving us presents, especially in the department stores. I loved Santa, no matter what other people said about him.
I got married. We had children. So, every Christmas, we always had one extra present under the tree given to the children from Santa. Well, as the years went by, the children knew better, but didn’t tell us what they thought of Santa so they could keep getting an extra present. That was fine with me and my husband. We wanted them to have lots of presents anyway. Then, the two older kids started to giggle around Christmas time, and so the presents from Santa was no longer a secret. So we stopped buying the extra presents.
Two more children were born. Since we had stopped giving presents from Santa, our youngest boy was not getting his extra present the way the older children had gotten theirs when they were little. The older children had blown out cover.
So, when Christmas time came, we only got presents from my husband and I. Then on that one night I saw St. Nicholas going out of my window. I yelled in my sleep, “Wait! Wait! St. Nicholas! Wait!” My husband pushed me and said, “Aim, wake up! You okay?”
I was still making moaning sounds as I was still yelling for St. Nicholas to stop and wait. I was still half asleep, half awake. I asked, “Who is St. Nicholas?”
“Santa Claus,” my husband said. “Why?” He asked.
“He just ran out of our window,” I explained.
“Huh?” My husband asked. So, I told him the whole dream. He listened to how I described St. Nicholas. My husband told me that is actually how Santa Claus, the real Santa, looked like. He then told me the story of St. Nicholas.
I never knew Santa Claus was St. Nicholas. I’ve never heard of St. Nicholas. I was still burning incense in the morning and saying Our Father at night before bed time. It had been a long time since I studied in my Catholic school, in another country, in another language. I never knew St. Nicholas was Santa Claus. I was puzzled. I thought and thought. I researched and researched. I found old artwork of Santa Claus and there he was, the St. Nicholas that went out of my window.
Santa had come to my home.