The end of magic

My brother and I believed in Santa Claus long after all the other kids had stoped believing. Sometimes, kids would come up to us and tell us that Santa wasn’t real, but it was as if we didn’t even hear what they were saying. My brother and I were very different and fought about absolutely everything, but when it came to Santa, we were united in our belief.

In Switzerland, Santa Claus day is on the 6th of the December and it’s quite a big deal. Santa knew whether we had been good throughout the year and would read out the verdict from his big book. If we had been reasonably good, he would ask us to recite our Santa poem and then he ended up pouring the contents of his huge Hessian bag onto the living room floor - peanuts, mandarins, chocolates and dates. He always ended up pouring the bag onto the floor, but we were nervous every year. Santa has a companion called “Schmutzli”, who is a dark, silent character in a black coat with a hood and a black painted face. Everyone was terrified of “Schmutzli”, especially because we knew he would take us back to the forest in his bag if we hadn’t been good throughout the year. Most kids knew a story of a cousin’s friend’s brother or someone who had actually been taken away.

The anxiety and then the relief was part of the deal though and the whole Santa

thing was magic for us and we didn’t want to let it go. The day my brother and I finally had to face reality and give up on Santa was rather tragic. My brother, who is two years older than me, was absolutely devastated. He cried so much that he almost suffocated and accused my parents of lying to him and deceiving him. For me, the loss of Santa was very sobering and I felt disappointed and suddenly much older. In future, I was going to be a bit more careful about believing everything they tell you.