When I was four, my daddy killed Santa Claus. No, he didn’t shove him off the roof or anything, but his death was very real and his burial very quick.There was no sense of foreshadowing of the event that would occur that Christmas morning. The day of the funeral began like the Christmases before it. In the early hours of the morning a figure appeared in my room and excitedly shook me awake, it was my mom. Yes, she was one of those excited moms who liked to wake their kids up at six in the morning to open toys. No one could blame her really, I was her youngest child and the whole pomp and circumstance of Christmas Day was for me.The events that would follow would be swift, however life changing.We preceded to the front room, not yet the scene of the crime. There my mom had turned on the Christmas tree lights. I saw a whole heap of presents that had not been there the night before. Santa sure did bring a lot of toys this year, my four year brain thought. Mom rushed to go get her disposable camera as it was her custom to take pictures of me holding up each and every present I opened. Needless to say, it was a very long process.There was a sudden knock at the door.Daddy stood in front me, dressed in his work clothes and big construction boots. It was funny, because He kind of looked like Santa Claus, only with a really dark tan and a short black fro, my four year old mind pondered. Still aglow with Christmas delight, I ran to give him a hug and proceeded to tell him all about the Christmas presents Santa had brought me. A funny look appeared on his face. He wasn’t mad or anything, but something in the atmosphere had changed. It was the kind of mysterious change that occurs in each of our lives, the change that incrementally brings us out of childhood fantasies and into the next stage of adolescence.The death was a quick one and the funeral was just as short, the eulogy read: Santa is a Jive and Daddy is the real Santa Claus.How could this be? My four year old mind rushed to make sense of what was being said.My daddy continued on with the eulogy and felt it necessary to have me repeat it after him, not in a malicious way, but in a way only my dad could say it. So my four year old self repeated daddy. “Santa is a jive and Daddy is the real Santa Claus.” The words felt funny in my mouth. Not quite sure what had just happened, I walked into the kitchen a little perplexed by what my little ears had heard. My brain searched its limited four year old vocabulary to try to comprehend what Daddy had just said … what was a jive and why was daddy telling me that he was Santa Claus?I decided to ask my mom.She stood silent for a while; her face read a mix of horror and amusement … Now why would that man go on and tell that child that? She thought. Calmly she reassured me that my daddy was right, He was my Santa Claus and she, his little helper! No sense letting me think he done ALL the work, right?I returned to the front room still not quite sure how I felt about the burial, but kind of relieved that Daddy was Santa Claus, how cool was that! He proceeded to put me on his knee and read me a book he had bought for me especially for Christmas and I was okay with the world again, yet not quite the same. I had aged in those few moments, somehow I imagined myself older, a little more mature than before. So from the age of four the word jive had become an important part of my vocabulary as I would tell the kids at school that Santa was a jive and the real man who delivered their toys on Christmas Day was MY daddy! Hey, I was only four years old.Fast forward a few more Christmases. No longer under the spell of infancy, I had grown to accept that my parents were the ones buying the gifts. With time I would come to appreciate the sacrifices they made to make Christmas special for me. Each year a new toy or gadget would capture my attention and I would think I had the greatest “Santa” in the world. Maybe it was the doll who could roller skate my sixth Christmas or the Walkie Talkies my eighth one. When I got older it was the gift cards my mom bought for books or my new iPod. Every year like my daddy promised He’d dress in his invisible Santa suit and make Christmas magical for me. The Christmas tree would be piled with gifts and my mom would have out her disposable camera ready to take pictures … Christmas was predictable, it was safe.Only it never occurred to my 20 year old mind that Santa Clauses, even ones as great as my dad, don’t live forever.I’d known for two years that my dad was sick, yet part of me still clung to the adolescent belief that daddies were invincible. Though I had passed the age of legal adulthood my experiences were still sheltered in the comfort of my childhood. I found out he was sick after my freshmen year of college abroad. He was proud that I was going to college, an opportunity he didn’t have the chance to share himself. In August 2006 the three of us my mom, my dad and I had boarded a plane to send me off for my first year away at school. It was there he’d be taken by ambulance to the hospital; there my Santa would receive a diagnosis of colon cancer.On December 23rd, 2008, two days before Christmas my dad lost his fight with cancer. It’s been almost three years since his death.Now 23, Christmas brings on a whole new meaning for me, not particularly sad, but different than before. Long gone are days of waiting up to see Santa Claus put presents under the tree, the mysterious change that had started when I was four was finally complete. My adolescence was over and I was discovering the new joys and heartaches of adulthood. I was discovering the reality of losing someone you love and the pangs of wanting to see them again.Inadvertently, on that fateful Christmas day when Dad read Santa’s eulogy, he had left me with a deep impression of what a real Santa Claus should be. Though I was too young to understand it at the time, He had taught me through the example of his life what the real man behind the red suit that so many kids see each year around Christmas time should represent.The revised eulogy would read like this:“Santa was a man who invested in his kid’s life by being present both physically and emotionally, He never just showed up with gifts on Christmas day, but was present throughout his kid’s life by giving gifts of wisdom and direction. He was a man who did his best to provide for his kid even at the expense of himself, Santa was a man who left his little girl each day with the idea that she was indeed special and deserve the best from life.”Thus read the Eulogy of my dad, my Santa Claus.