Published: 24 Dec 2018

Ho, ho, ho! Oh how I learned to hate this “Ho, ho, ho” over the last few days! Why, oh why had I agreed to do this job? Monsters! Monsters everywhere! Small and crying most of the time, very rarely with bright eyes and thankful for the little gifts I handed out.

Oh, wait, I guess I should start at the beginning. A couple of weeks ago my friend Caro meant that I needed to go out more. And she already knew how I should do it: as Rent-a-Santa, like so many of my fellow students did. And stupid little me decided to do just that! For much too little money I was running around now in an ugly, hot red suit, the front filled with a thick pillow. My poor head was covered by a weird hat, and I was sweating underneath the undulating artificial beard, stray hairs from that always getting caught in my teeth. Right now I was trying to decide what was worse: playing Santa at elementary schools and kindergardens with lots of irritating little kids, or at company Christmas partys filled with adults who most of the time already were drunk from all the punch und mulled wine.

But now I was happy for the first time today. I just had finished my last performance as Santa not only for this day but for the whole Christmas season. Actually my last performance of Santa forever! Never again! I was sitting on the stairs in front of a sports clubs building. A sports club filled with the most annoying brats of the whole day. After this appointment I needed some recovery time! I guess real Christmas spirit was totally outdated nowadays. But as I said, I survived and it was now time to go home, have a hot bath and then move my stressed-out self to my parents’ house, where I would stay for the holidays.

Hm. What’s that noise? Something was buzzing, and I was surprised that I even noticed it, with all the noise coming from the bratty Christmas party. Ah. My cell phone. Set to quiet vibrating of course. Not even Santa can survive without a cell phone these days. I guess I should accept the call.

“Yes?”

“Raphael! Finally! I’m trying to reach you for at least half an hour already!”

Raphael, that’s me. Raphael Schott, at your service. On the other end of the call was Klaus, the owner of the Rent-a-Santa agency.

“Until three minutes ago I was busy playing Santa for a bunch of spoiled brats, I didn’t hear the phone in there. What do you need from me?”

“Raphy, I know that you’re done with your work today, but I have a big problem. I have one more place for Santa to visit, and I have nobody available anymore. Those folks already are waiting. Could you do this one more job?”

Great, so much for being done with this stupid job. Sigh.

“Okay, where do you need me?”

“You have to come to the office first, the bag with gifts is still here. Everything else I’ll tell you when you’re here. But please, please hurry, we are really late already.”

Oh well. I jumped in my car and navigated through the thick pre Christmas traffic. Of course I followed all traffic rules! Not. But I doubt any cop would ticket Santa on his way to those who were waiting for him, right?

At the office the boss Santa was eagerly waiting for me already.

“Oh thank god, you’re here! Look, this is the place where you have to go. And here is the bag with the gifts.”

I took the sheet of paper with the address on it and hesitated after reading it.

“Klaus? What’s that? Queer World? I haven’t heard about that before.”

“That … well … that is a gay-lesbian youth center. Niklas was their Santa for the last two years.”

“Ah, and why isn’t he doing it this year?”

Niklas was 22, three years older than me, and a seasoned Rent-a-Santa. When I started the job he helped me a bit and showed me the ropes.

“The poor guy fell down the stairs at his second-to-last job, and it looks like he broke one of his feet.”

“And that’s why I’m here now?”

“Yes. Raph, you don’t have to do this if you feel really uncomfortable about it, but you really are my last hope. Hendrik already declined to do this place, with quite some nasty words. I would do it myself, but…”

The big “but”. Klaus was wheelchair bound for a couple of years now and couldn’t play Santa himself anymore.

To be honest, the idea of giving out gifts to a bunch of gays and lesbians wasn’t really appealing to me, but I felt that I owed it to Klaus and Niklas to help them. With a sigh I grabbed the gift bag.

“Bye bye, Klaus, and Merry Christmas.”

“Thank you, Raphy, you’re my saviour! Merry Christmas to you, too. Oh, and don’t bother to bring back your costume tomorrow, it won’t be needed for eleven months anyways.”

“Okay.”

I left the office and was sitting in my car two minutes later, on my way to now hopefully really the last job of the day. Queer World. Of course in a part of town where it would be next to impossible to find a place to park my car.

Twenty minutes later I was there, sitting in my car in front of the target building. And just as I expected: no empty parking place in sight. I decided to trust my luck and park in the second row. I got out of the car when someone addressed me.

“Hello Santa!”

I turned around and noticed a little girl, maybe five or six years old.

“Hello! Who are you?”

“Nicole!”

I slipped into my role as gracious Santa Claus when a young woman showed up next to the little girl.

“Nicole! Didn’t I tell you to not leave my side?”

“But mom, look, Santa is here!”

The mom shrugged apologetic, I mean how could she tell her little girl that Santa wasn’t here to give her something? But wait, besides the gift bag for the youth center I had some little goodies in my car, leftovers from other Santa performances. I looked down at the girl.

“Well, Nicole, were you a good little girl this year?”

“Yes!”

I looked at her mom, who gave me a relieved smile before answering my unspoken question.

“Most of the time she was a good little girl, Santa.”

“Hm, I guess I can believe your mom.”

I gave the little girl a chocolate Santa and was rewarded with a bright smile.

“You have to promise me to be a good girl for the next year, too.”

“Thank you, Santa, I promise!”

Her mom was thankful, too, and then had an idea.

“Santa, do you need a parking place?”

I nodded.

“Yes, but I’m afraid I wont find one of those in my gift bag.”

The woman laughed and pointed to a big SUV, parked maybe 20 meters away from us.

“This is my personal parking spot, but I don’t need it anymore today. If you can spare three or four more minutes, I’ll be gone and you can have that place.”

Wow! I guess good deeds sometimes really get rewarded! Of course I accepted this nice offer, and five minutes later I was ready to start my Queer World adventure, without the fear of my car getting towed away while I was doing my job.

I was awaited already, I wasn’t even completely inside when a short but portly man came running to me. Hm. He looked quite normal, and without the HIV ribbon and the rainbow button on his shirt I wouldn’t have realized that I just met my first homo of the day. 30, maybe 35 years old, thinning brown hair with a receding hairline, round rimmed glasses. Oh, and I wasn’t the only one with a voluminous beard anymore, though this guys beard most likely was the real deal and not artificial like mine.

“Good evening, good evening! Finally! I was afraid that Santa would be a no show today. But you’re not Niklas?”

Last time I checked I wasn’t.

“Nik had an accident and can’t come.”

“Oh my god, the poor boy. And that on the day before Christmas Eve. What kind of accident did he have?”

“He fell down a stairway and broke a foot.”

“Oh, oh. I’ll have to call him later to give him my best wishes. But I’m glad that you were ready to take over for him.”

Well, I wasn’t that glad, but I wouldn’t tell him that face to face. I mean, he wasn’t to blame for Nik’s accident.

“Okay, come with me, please. You got the gifts, right?”

“Yes, they were still at the office.”

“Good, good. I will help you with the names. Nik would have known most of our kids, but don’t worry, with my help you’ll get it done.”

That was something I wasn’t afraid of, I had lots of practice handing out gifts to strangers. But wait. Niklas would have known most of the people here? Was he … I mean … Niklas? Nah. I couldn’t imagine that. On the other hand … you can’t recognize “them” just from looking at them, right?

“Oh, by the way, I’m Detlef. I know, I know, that’s not really a surprise.” (In Germany Detlef is often seen as a typical name for a gay man.)

The little human ball grinned at me, showing two rows of bright white teeth.

“I’m Raphael.”

Detlef opened a door and pushed me into a big hall. A beautifully christmassy decorated hall, lots of candles and other Christmas paraphernalia. On top of it the smell of incense. To be honest, this was the most festive place I had seen during all my performances as Santa. Maybe it wasn’t just a prejudice that gays were the born interior decorators? But I didn’t have the time to study my environment, Detlef decided to announce me.

“Ho, ho, ho!”

Wasn’t that my text?

“It’s time for gifts!”

The crowd started to cheer, and I eyed up the audience. Lots of young folks, maybe between 14 and 20, mostly boys but a few girls were here, too. And on first view I wouldn’t think of one of them as gay or lesbian if I had met them out in the streets.

“Great! I’ll get Santa!”

This announcement from a maybe 16 year old blondy was answered with broad laughter.

“Yes, Till, we know that you are into older guys. But keep your fingers off Santa, he is here for all of us!”

Ohkay… Hopefully “all of us” knew that I was only here to hand out Christmas gifts! But the atmosphere was really good. Noisy, but cheerful and peaceful. Maybe this wouldn’t be the disaster that I expected.

“Okay, my dear Santa, how will we do this?”

Good question. I somehow knew that my usual program would need some changes. Some thirty curious pairs of eyes looked at me.

“I don’t know. I mean, usually this would be the time for me to ask if you all were good girls and boys. But I guess I can skip that here, right?”

This time I was the one who was rewarded with lots of laughter, I guess I had hit the right tone.

The next 45 minutes or so I spent with handing out gifts to abnormal people who all looked and behaved shockingly normal. Everything was cheerfull and funny, with some of the slightly uncommon gifts playing a major role in that. My eyes were wide open, watching the kids to open their gifts, finding condoms, gay literature, pride jewelry and other things like that. Luckily my big artificial beard was hiding most of my face, making sure that nobody could see the mix of redness and grinning on it.

Finally it was done, the gift bag was empty and even Detlef had received a gift. The studded leather cap triggered the last big round of laughter of the event. And it was the centers boss who spoke to the crowd now.

“Okay, folks, let’s all say Thank you, dear Santa!”

“Thank you, dear Santa!”

I bowed slightly, then turned around to leave, but my escape was stopped.

“Please wait a moment, Raphael. Would you like to stay for a while? We ordered a giant buffet, and it’s time to raid it. And well, with your heroic subbing for Niklas this is the least we can do for you. Of course only if you don’t have anything better to do.”

I thought for a moment and looked at my watch. It was quite late already, so staying for a while wouldn’t make a big difference. And to be honest: my stomach already made noises which could scare away a hungry lion.

“Okay, thanks. But only if I can take off some of this uniform.”

“Sure, no problem!”

Five minutes later I was free of hat, beard, jacket and the pillow that was hiding underneath it, I almost felt like a human again. I sighed in relief, which caught the attention of one of the boys.

“Feeling better, Santa? Don’t you want to get rid of those red pants, too?”

It only took a moment to remember the boys name.

“Better not, Till. At least if you don’t want to see Santa in woolen tights.”

Till chuckled softly.

“Oh well, with your real body you aren’t really my type anyways.”

Should I feel disappointed or lucky about that?

“Okay, I need to call someone.”

“Oh! Boyfriend or girlfriend?”

“Mother.”

“Oh, I have one of those, too! You better don’t keep her waiting! See you later.”

With these words he disappeared, and of course he was right. My mom was waiting for me already. I took my cell phone and called.

“Schott.”

“Hi Mom, it’s me!”

“Oh, Raphy! I expected you at our door, not on the phone!”

“Yeah, me too, but I had to do one last minute Santa job.”

“Poor boy, I know how much you love your job.”

“Yes. But oh well, it’s Christmas, I just couldn’t disappoint Klaus and the folks here.”

“Okay. Are you coming home now? You could have a late dinner with us.”

“Nah, thanks, mom, but I was invited to have dinner with my last audience.”

“I see. Will you still come home today? Or tomorrow?”

“I’m not sure, depends on how long I will stay here.”

“Okay. You have your key, if it gets really late, just come in and don’t wake us up. The guest room is ready for you.”

“Thanks, mom. See you no later than tomorrow. And say Hi to Walther from me.”

Walther? Oh, I guess I didn’t explain my family situation yet. Walther was my step dad, my parents got a divorce when I was twelve. Since that day I didn’t have any real contact with my biological father. He was the one responsible for the divorce, he had destroyed our family. Over the years mom had tried to reconcile us, but I wasn’t ready to do that. Not after what that man has done to mom and me. I couldn’t understand him, heck, I didn’t even want to understand him! Him living some 200 miles away from us made it easy for me to ignore him.

A few years later mom met Walther, and three years ago they got married. I liked Walther, he was a nice guy, but I couldn’t call him dad. Not after what my biological dad had done.

“Will do. Bye Raphy.”

I terminated the call, then I participated in the raid of the buffet. Great food! And somehow my earlier feeling of being weirded out about this place was pushed back more and more. The mood was very lively, some people talked with each other, others danced, and I couldn’t see a real difference to straight partys. With the exception of the unusual dance pairings of course.

At one point some of the boys found out that I was studying IT, and I was dragged to the club computer. I had to thank Detlef for rescuing me from having to re-install Windows on that piece of crap.

After Detlef rescued me, he dragged me to a corner of the room.

“Raphael, I can’t thank you enough for what you did today. Not only for being Santa, but also for not running away directly after being done with the gifts. You staying here for dinner was great for the kids.”

“You’re welcome. And it’s really nice and funny here.”

“I’m glad that you think like that. These girls and boys here are really nice folks. Girls and boys who don’t have it easy sometimes. Take Jan for example.”

The club boss pointed at a boy who looked roughly my age. His outfit was nondescript, compared to the others he was quiet and secluded.

“What about him?”

“His parents threw him out when they realized that their son was gay. That was not even two weeks ago. I don’t think he had imagined such a Christmas surprise.”

“Oh. Where does he live now?”

“For now he is staying with my husband and me. Luckily we have enough space, but this isn’t a solution forever. We can only hope that his parents wake up, but nobody can guarantee that, and it could take a long time. Such a coming out can destroy families, even those who were perfect before it happened.”

I felt a stab in my chest.

“You know, nobody chooses to be gay. I mean, who would be that stupid to choose a life of being discriminated against. A life of always being in danger of being attacked by haters. And a life of not being understood by many people. Oh no, believe me, nobody chooses such a life voluntary!”

Detlef got more and more agitated, and I slowly realized that up to this moment I was very superficial and judging on that topic. I mean, gay guys enjoy having sex with other guys, that’s it, isn’t it? I guess not…

“Grab some more food, and drink something! There is still lots left on the buffet.”

The usual problem with buffets. There always is enough to feed at least twice the number of guests. And even though everything was really great, I didn’t have the tiniest space available in my stomach anymore. And it was really late now, time for me to leave.

“Thanks, but I really have to go now.”

“Okay, say good bye to the crowd.”

That’s exactly what I did, and five minutes later I sat in my car. Not before I had promised to take care of the club computer on one of the next days.

The streets were quite empty now, it was a relaxed and short drive home to my little apartment. I was thankful for that, because my head was still busy with sorting through everything I had learned in the last two hours.

At home I enjoyed a nice hot shower, collected some stuff to take with me to my parents and secured the apartment.

While I was doing all this, and also during my trip to my parents’ house there was one picture I couldn’t get out of my head. Jan. Sitting there forlorn in his corner. Sad and hopeless, even though others again and again tried to cheer him up a bit. I wasn’t able to forget him, and this picture in my mind woke up other thoughts. Thoughts I never had before, mixed with memories that I had pushed far, far away. I got more and more nervous and confused. And I realized that I wouldn’t have a peaceful Christmas in this condition. The time in the Queer World had messed up my mind completely. I had to fix this. Somehow. Even though I couldn’t admit it to myself yet.

When I reached the house of my parents, I stopped the car, but I knew that I wouldn’t go in. And I wouldn’t go home either. I had to go somewhere else. Somewhere I wouldn’t have dreamed about to go only a few hours ago.

2.43am. I should be sleeping in my bed by now, but no, here I am, standing in the dark, cold night in front of a totally dark house, ringing the bell constantly. Hopefully none of the neighbors noticed me and called the police when I climbed over the fence to get to the door.

I had spent the last few hours in my car and now felt every bone and muscle in my body. I had enjoyed a strong coffee at a gas station, but even that caffeine high was fading away now. And all the time I was brooding, searching for reasons to just turn around and go home. And reasons to keep on going. In the end I had decided to keep going, and that’s why I’m standing in the dark now, hoping that someone would open the door for me.

Ah, finally! A light in the house got turned on. Steps got closer, a key was turned around, a chain unfastened, then the door was opened. A large man, wearing a dressing gown, was standing in the doorframe.

The man stared at me. I stared at him. For how long? Seconds? Minutes? The staring match ended by a second man appearing next to the first one. Also wearing a dressing gown. He is laying a strong arm around the first one, looking at him lovingly.

“Love, who is that?”

The first guy is looking deep into my eyes, and on his face I can see tears rolling down. And without having to look into a mirror I know that my own face looks just the same.

“That’s … that’s Raphael. That’s my son…”

Disclaimer: the german original of this story was written by a friend of mine and was published on a website for gay youth. When some people were happy with my translation of his other story “The Wishlist” I decided to translate this one, too. Sorry, it might be a bit bumpy, but I hope you’ll still enjoy it 🙂

If you want the german version, just write me: DanielRegenbogen at Yahoo dot DE

Merry Christmas everyone, and a Happy New Year!

Danny