My meeting with Santa

I have a meeting with Santa at the Mohonk Mountain House. From 12 to 1 he’s greeting people in the Grove Parlor on the first floor with his beloved wife, Mrs. Claus. It’s an open meet and greet but I so clearly see us having a heart to heart that in I’ve declared it to be a meeting.

Two blonde girls in matching outfits are climbing on the antique green couch as Santa asks them what they want.

“Please answer Santa, so you can get what you want?” Their mother pleads.

A young couple with a boy and girl came behind me on line. The boy is fussing, complaining about his itchy pants. The younger sister is holding her breath with a glazed look in her eyes. The young dad looks like he’s been pulled in a million directions. I tell them to go ahead of us which brings forth a wave of thank-you’s.

I am with my wife who was supposed to be in Saint Lucia for Tina, her best friend’s 60th birthday party with eight other women. If only I hadn’t interjected, suggesting traveling five hours to a drinking event as her lithium levels are just stabilizing her moods was not the best idea she might not be talking about how she should have actually gone.

Depression is horrible. I booked this meditative retreat with snow hikes, mindfulness classes and a bonding couples message. It’s December in New Paltz. There’s snow, a roaring fire, the entire historic wooden inn which was built in 1896 on a giant rock base is wrapped in oversized red ribbons for Christmas and as a bonus, I have this big meeting with Santa.

First we went on a mindfulness nature walk. Wearing spiky things you clamp to the bottom of your shoes to protect the snow and so you don’t slip, we climb a trail overlooking a wide valley. There are panoramic views of the 18th century hotel on a small lake, and the Sky Top Tower on the other side at the top of the mountain. The hotel guide who helped us attach the snow shoe gadgets tells us how when the stone tower was built engineers created a quarry, which they converted into a reservoir so the hotel has its own water source in case of fires. In an emergency it takes exactly 56 seconds for the water to reach the hotel.

Looking at a majestic hawk diving across the valley my wife says “Now they’re all going on a boat to the waterfall.”

She’s memorized the agenda of Tina’s Saint Lucia party. She has been asking everyone she sees if she’s doing the right thing missing out on Saint Lucia.

Past presidents William Taft, Rustherford Hayes and Chester Arthur have their portraits in the hallway marking their stays here. There’s an all you could eat breakfast with an omelet station with egg whites, lobster, organic mushrooms, high ceilings and views of the mountains. I get a fresh eggs Benedict which a chef poaches in a boiling pot of water right in front of me. As we sit at our table with a view of the lake my wife says, “Now they’re swimming with sea turtles in the warm turquoise water.”

She is pulling me down her rumination rabbit hole. I look at the happy din with all the people with their plates of food and think why can’t my wife stop talking about this party and focus on me?

The Smiley family built this enormous compound as a place for reflection and peace. My parents never brought me here. I told my mother, who is living at home with an aide, that I was taking my wife to the Mohonk House. She said Ah, yes. I know it well.

I’ve been scanning photos of her photo albums which are kind of falling apart, wedged in a bottom cabinet. There is a picture of her in a bikini as a 20 something, (she told me it was pink!) dating Ira, my future father, but there are no pictures at the Mohonk house.

“Mom, did you go there before you had us kids?”

It’s lonely scanning the photographs because I don’t think my sisters care to reminisce about our childhood. My family was so beautiful, the smiles in the black and white pictures my mother took but now that she has Alzheimer’s we’re not coming together. My gmail is littered with angry emails blaming me for mother’s fall while walking the dog and other things I try not to look at. I blocked in coming emails for now, but all the anger is just lingering.

At the US Open Kevin, a Canadian boyfriend of a woman who was my brother-in-laws first wife told me: If your parents live to eighty everything after that is extra. Kevin was a really nice guy but he isn’t going to hang out with me at my mother’s house and look at the pictures I’m scanning and comfort my mother. I mean, I guess Kevin is right, but it’s not helpful.

Santa stands up from the couch for me, as I’m a six foot tall sixty year old man. Yes, I’m in a fuzzy sweater carrying a gray journal, but if I was in a suit I could be president Taft, Hayes or Authur. It would be inappropriate for a president to sit on an antique green couch like a little boy. Mrs Claus looks over at me with her kind caring mother eyes, a twinkle in her eyes that tells me how much she loves me.

“Santa,” I say, my journal in hand, “I’m a writer and I just want to be able to open up to the world.”

“You’re doing it,” he says.

I suddenly feel like I’m going to cry. Santa has a gray beard and red velvet just like at Macy’s parade. Mrs. Claus doesn’t seem like an actor, just a kind New Paltz woman who met a man in a red suit, fell in love and now wants to bring stray men a moment of joy.

My wife says, “Santa, he’s obsessed with you.”

Alex Rodriquez, the baseball star who had a 252 million dollar contract, started taking steroids, his world of lies collapsed around him until a therapist named Doctor David helped him address his past, to stop bullshitting. I feel like a humbled star. I can’t bullshit Santa.

”Santa, Mrs. Claus,” I say to both he and his wife. “I have two girls who are growing up and they are going off to college, my sisters don’t like me anymore, my wife is obsessing that she wants to be in Saint Lucia. I want to make everyone happy, but so many bad things can happen.”

Mrs. Claus looks like she’s about to cry. “Merry Christmas,” she says.

A hotel worker who’s been anxiously watching me, a grown man talking to Santa, takes our picture, the four of us.

I wonder if I can get Mr and Mrs. Claus’ number and we can get together for brunch. Maybe one day we’ll have a fruit salad in Saint Lucia. My wife and I have to make new friends.