Dear Editor,
People think “Baby It’s Cold Outside” is encouraging bad behaviour. That’s nothing. I am still emotionally scarred by songs and stories told to me as a child.
There was a baby blown out of a tree. The clocks were full of mice! The tooth fairy gave my rich friends far more than she gave me. Didn’t she know that I was nicer than them?
A wolf ate my friend’s granny. (Little Red, we called her.) Now that made me hide under the bed!
There was a story going round every winter about a fat old guy in a red onesie, who actually taught eight moose or deer or something how to fly. We actually believed that.
Then this fat old codger sneaked in our house. How he made it down the chimney without landing in the fireplace, I’ll never know. I distinctively remember this old guy kissing me. What is the statute of limitations?
In the spring, suddenly rabbits (who had only been known to leave these round poop balls all over) actually learned to lay eggs. Not just ordinary eggs, but fancy ones. Some even had my name on them. Did they learn to write too?
One day it all came crashing down. Some kid told me it was all not true. My Mom told me he was wrong, but even in my young brain, it all started to add up. I had been duped.
I let my Mom keep deluding herself with all this nonsense, but finally it dawned on her that the kids knew there was no Santa Claus.
Probably the salty old tale about three men doing something in a bathtub wasn’t possible either.
That was the end of my childhood.
Love to you all. Happy New Year.
Mona Baker
Formerly of Barrhead, but now Ardrie
