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For another year, the Hometown Christmas welcomed holiday revelers downtown for yuletide fun and togetherness, filled with holiday music and a wide assortment of the some stalwart faces and new additions.

I should say “hardy” revelers because it was cold. Was it the coldest day ever? Nope, but add in a sprite of wind and it was cold enough to warrant a literal sculpture garden of heaters set up in front of the stage for people to gather around. It didn’t matter if you knew who you were standing next to. It was survival at this point.

Probably a little over the top. It wasn’t like I walked across Antarctica from my car to the festivities, but it was cold enough to alert a person that maybe the gloves I was wearing weren’t quite enough.

Either way, Hometown Christmas remains a gateway event to the holidays. Fresh off of Thanksgiving, the event is a tradition in a lot of ways for people who are looking to get into the spirit.

There’s something to be said about these kinds of traditions and more than a few times I think back to my own days as a strapping young lad back in Lake Wilson.

We didn’t have a celebration of the scope of Hometown Christmas, but we did have Santa Claus and for a kid, that’s all you needed because there was work to be done.

No, I didn’t really care one bit about a silent night, holly or mistletoe or any other silly attribute of Christmas. This was about striking a lucrative deal with Santa for loot under the tree.

I took great pains to be a good boy throughout the year. Or the last half of the year … previous three months and that’s my final offer.

Either way, it was time for this seven year old to channel his inner business man in order to better negotiate my deal.

Santa: Were you a good boy this year?

Me: While I can’t say for a fact that I always adhered to proper etiquette in all situations, I can say with utter sincerity that at no time did I leave the block without my mom’s permission. Certainly no more than twice and not without a solid reason for future advancement. That tree required to be climbed.

Translated, that was a big yes with a frantic nodding of my head topped with truly untrainable hair. For some reason, I wasn’t much of a hair-comber in my youth.

This tense negotiation went on for a number of years, at least until I was 18 and it became uncomfortable to all that I probably shouldn’t be visiting Santa any more.

Just kidding. Hahahahahahaha. I think I actually quit going when I was 16.

The brass tax of the situation was  that I, like every other kid, took our visit with Santa very seriously. In my head I had a litany of things I needed to ask for and be prepared to back up my arguments in a social court of law complete with the familiar “donk-donk” of a “Law and Order: Christmas.”

Of course, in the quest for some kind of edge in getting that prime Christmas gift, I failed to observe that I myself was being duped, hornswaggled, conned, being fed a bunch of bunco, swindled and dare I say, rooked.

The man I was laying out my finely detailed plan of Christmas happiness to, wasn’t Santa. NO! This Santa was not real. Just one of the many helpers of Santa who dressed like him and took in our lists with the fallibility of a common man.

It turns out that for years I knew this man after his true identity was revealed to me by my parents much later in life when I asked if I should send my Christmas list to them or Santa.   

This left me in something of a dilemma — when I was younger of course, I mean. Not only did this Santa stand-in know me, but he likely saw right through my pleas of being a good boy. You know, because he knew me and stuff.

You may not expect this, but I was something of a scamp in my younger years. A fairly nice sort of scamp I mean. I didn’t try to filch you for a turn of coin from your pocket or anything of the sort.

I believe the term is likely thought of as a lovable scamp, with some dalliance in petty thievery. I once, in an act of rebellion, tried to “lift” a bag of M&M’s from Gene’s Service just down the street.

Naturally, I was racked by guilt after this and hid the evidence in the garage. Evidence I found again about three years later and that had melted into a ball of chocolate and candy shell. It was also hinted to me later that my thievery didn’t go completely unnoticed by Gene himself.

Small towns, man. I’ll tell you what.

Either way, kids. If you’re reading this, first off. Why? Second off, always be aware of who you are giving your Christmas list to. Sure, they might be the original Santa, but it could also be someone dressed up, acting the part in a helper role.

This is important, because I guarantee there is a good chance that they know exactly if you’ve been naughty or nice.

CIA spooks is what they are.