Visits from Santa Claus!  Ah, yes!  I think I wrote in my Weird Meme recently about having a photographic memory when it comes to numbers.  Well, I also have a memory that goes waaaaaaaaaay back.  I can remember having a hemorrhaging nosebleed when I was around 3 years old...the terrifying ride thru the middle of the nite to the hospital in a town 10 miles away, the blood-soaked towel my mom had in her hands, her frantic voice saying, "Hurry, Victor!" to my dad over and over again.  I also remember being packed in ice.  And, once the nosebleed stopped, watching my parents backing out of my hospital room saying "Good nite!" and peering at them thru the crib bars.  The next morning a sweet-voiced nurse gave me a bath in a big tin pan in a sink!

Well, my memories also go back to a visit from Santa Claus.  I was around the same age at the time and I can remember one of my brothers standing next to the crib I had at home, shaking the bars and yelling, "Santa Claus is here!  Santa Claus is here!"  I guess Santa was supposed to have arrived earlier in the evening but my parents had finally given up on him coming and had put me to bed.  So...I was awakened out of sleep.  But I knew who Santa was and I was ecstatic!  That is, until my mom took me out into the living room to see him.  He was SO drunk he terrified me!  I scrambled up into my mother's arms and held her in a death-grip until Santa finally left.  It's a wonder I didn't have nightmares of Santa for the rest of my life.

Back in those days, the mid-1950s, you could contact the VFW in my little hometown and have Santa stop by your house for a nominal fee so my parents had decided to surprise my two older brothers and me and do it.  Little did they know that Santa sampled quite a bit of "Christmas Cheer" along the way and by the time he finally stumbled upon our porch he was three sheets to the wind!

I have photos of me from that nite.  My arms and legs are wrapped like a boa constrictor around my petite little mother.  My oldest brother is sitting on Santa's lap with eyes the size of saucers.  My eyes were huge, too, but from fear, haha!  I can remember the sense of terror, but that story went into the family memory vault to be taken out each year and chuckled over.

I don't think I ever looked at Santa in quite the same way.