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Around this time every year, children can be placed in one of two categories — the ones that believe in “Sandy Claus” and the ones who really don’t believe but want, with all their little hearts, to believe in that Right Jolly Ol’ Elf.

Betty Kay, my best friend, said there was no Sandy Claus. It was your mama and daddy that slipped around the house and put toys and cookies under the Christmas tree.

I asked Daddy if there was a real Sandy Claus and he said “yes.”

“How does that fat man get down the chimney?” I asked. “Don’t the coals burn him?”

“No,” Daddy said. “He wars a firemen suit.”

“But, how can reindeer fly?” On and on, one question after the other. And, Daddy didn’t say how reindeer could fly or how they got they magic powers or how Sandy Claus did this or that  or how Rudolph got his red nose. Or why the little elves didn’t freeze,  how he got his magic and where elves got magic.

Daddy didn’t know any answers, he just said if you believed Santa Claus would come to you, he would.  I wanted Santa Claus to come to me because I really wanted a Red Ryder BB gun and a Howdy Doody puppet. So, I asked Daddy again and again if  there was really a Sandy Claus and to my surprise, Daddy said, “No! There is no Sandy Claus. Don’t ask me again.”

I could feel the warm tears stinging my face. There was no Sandy Claus? I wanted to fall out of my chair dead!

Mama sat down hard on her chair. “William!”

“Well, it’s time she knows.”

My lip started to quiver and hot tears ran down my face. I had a lump in my throat as big as an apple and I thought for all the world that my heart was about to stop. I pushed my supper plate back on the table and ran outside. I sat down on the backdoor steps. That was my thinking place.

My old, old grandmother came and sat down beside me. “What are you crying about? she asked.

“Daddy said there is no Sandy Claus.”

“He probably told you that because you worried him to death with all those questions and he just told you something you really didn’t want to know.”

I looked up into my grandma’s sweet ol’ face and asked, “Is there really a Sandy Claus? Really?”

“Yes, my little girl, there is a Sandy Claus. Just as sure as I’m sittin’ here, as long as you believe there is a Sandy Claus.”

I believed every word my granny said. “Sandy Claus brought me a puppet but he left me a note that little girls don’t shoot BB guns.

And, to this very day, I believe in Sandy Claus. But, he was wrong, Little girls can shoot BB guns.