With some effort Santa swallowed the cookie and took a sip of the milk. He grimaced briefly and set it down, looking at Tim and turning serious again. “So.” He gestured to the tree. “You’ll notice I haven’t put anything out for you yet. I didn’t get a Christmas list from you this year… what would you like? Aside from diapers, of course; I don’t think you really want to open those in front of your family.”
Tim sat in shock. “Um, what?” He knew about the diapers?
Santa nodded toward the tree. His boots reflected some twinkling lights. “What do you want for Christmas, son? I’m all ears.” He smiled that sympathetic smile again.
“Uh… what did you… did you say that, before, what I think you did?” It was as delicately as he could manage it without saying outright what was on his mind. Of course he would rather have diapers, and a few other things too… but it felt wrong asking Santa for them.
“You mean did I say the word ‘diapers’?” He nodded calmly. “You heard right.” He took another cookie off the tray but didn’t bite into it. “You don’t want to ask me for those, so I’m not going to leave any for you. You can’t have anything you’re afraid to ask for, you know. How about a new sweater? Maybe some music?” He opened up the sack and started digging around. “I have a whole pile of those gift card things in here… I hate those things myself, they’re not very personal… but what’s your favorite store?” He looked up at Tim expectantly, his face neutral.
Tim paused. He didn’t want any of those things. He shook his head reflexively. “Um… no, it’s cool, I don’t really need anything.” Was he saying that for real? Santa Claus had just asked him directly what he wanted, and he was turning him down? He hesitated. “Well… um… I don’t know… nothing in particular, I guess…” He smiled, completely transparently.
Santa watched him and closed his sack. He sat down on the hearth and chewed his cookie thoughtfully for a moment. “Tim… how to put this… I’m Santa Claus. I see when you’re sleeping, I know when you’re awake, blah blah blah. I know if you’ve been bad or good, and, well… you really haven’t been that good. You’ve been unfair to your parents, you’ve been resentful of your brother, and as for yourself… well, frankly, you deserve coal, but I don’t want to do that to you.” His cheeks looked less rosy as he shook his head. “I’d rather give you something you want. Honestly though… and I’ll tell you a secret here… I don’t think I can do it.”
It took a moment for Tim to register everything he’d heard. He pulled the quilt more around him. “Oh… right. Sorry. Yeah, I guess I should have been better. Sorry.” He avoided Santa’s twinkle-less eyes. “Um… I understand, if you can’t do anything. Just the CD’s or the sweater or whatever is totally fine… I don’t really have a list, that’s just the stuff I get every year.”
Slowly, Santa nodded. “I think you’ve heard me wrong. I didn’t mean because you were bad, or because I don’t know what you want, because I do…” He smiled apologetically at Tim’s questioning face. “Yes, I was kidding about not knowing before, I’m sorry… but what I meant is that what you want isn’t in my power to give.” He took another drink of the lukewarm milk, made another face, and folded his hands over his belly to give Tim a moment to digest the statement. “I’m great at the material things but not so good on the intangibles, like love and hope and courage and faith and all that. So…” Opening the sack again, he drew out several presents, all in the expected shapes and sizes for clothes and movies and other things a young teenager might seem satisfied with, and set them quickly under the tree. “…that takes care of that. Incidentally, one of those is my favorite movie of all time.” He winked and smiled for a moment before turning serious again. “Now, I’ve got two more presents for you. How does that sound?”
Tim could barely nod. He was practically in shock. Was Santa guessing right about what he actually wanted? “Um… thanks…” Tim actually managed a genuine smile. He was honestly grateful that he wasn’t being teased about wanting diapers, but once he got past that, he was more confused than anything else. “Um… you’re not… you said I’m not in trouble?” His eyes strayed to the gifts with his name on them under the tree. “…I mean, these are nice and all… you don’t need to do anything else for me.” He tried to smile and hurriedly added “I really appreciate it though.”