Christmas, The Nativity of the Lord, December 25, 2024 - Isaiah 9:1-6; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14
 
No matter what the future may hold for St. Joseph's, this will be my last Christmas as your pastor.  It seemed to me that I should have some special Christmas homily.  But, no matter what the future holds, I will continue celebrating Mass until my health or age prevents it, so my "last" is probably not my last, after all.
 
So, instead of leaving a legacy, let me tell you a story. It's about Jesse, an old guy who spent his career working each advent as a "Mall Santa."
                
It's December 24th. The shoppers are mostly gone. Jesse gets up from his Santa chair, stretches, takes off his beard, and steps down off the platform. Like every other evening, he's tired. But like every past December 24^th, he's also relieved ... and a little sad.
 
He's been doing this a long time and he's seen a lot of changes - from being called "Santa's Helper," to "Department Store Santa," to "Mall Santa." "What's next," he muses, a little cynically,  a 'virtual visit with Santa'? They won't be needing folks like me much longer." We've gone from having a professional in-store photographer to a computerized camera, from a staff of helper elves to one bored teenager in a store vest. The old carols and Christmas songs have given way to ambient noise.
 
And that "little kid on a grown man's lap" thing finally came under scrutiny. So, now, there were courses to take and IDs to carry ... and much less of the feeling of intimacy and compassion. And fewer parents were bringing their kids now-a-days. Still ... the tradition survives!
 
Jesse ducks into the storeroom, takes off his Santa suit, stuffs it into his backpack, pops a couple of Tylenol and    heads out the service entrance to the bus stop. But he finds his mood flooding with memories of "the job."
 
He's worked at stores that had a huge display for him: brightly lit Christmas trees on each side of his big, comfy chair, a fence of garland around his stage, poinsettias galore, and piles of pretty wrapped presents for the kids. But other joints had him stashed away in a dimly lit corner, sitting on a hard bench, the pile of presents unwrapped, with their price stickers still on them. 
 
But he can't complain. He could have tried harder, too. There were times when he didn't bother to have his red suit dry cleaned between seasons, to comb out his beard, to "get into" his role.
 
Interesting thing about those presents! Of course, the admission ticket to visit Santa actually paid for them ... but when they were brightly wrapped and all piled up, most kids seemed equally grateful to have them. Most kids ... his train of thought was broken as the bus arrived. He got on and was grateful for a seat with no companions. He could sort-of slump down and relax.
 
Now ... where was he? Oh, yeah. he had been thinking about his "customers," his "audience," his "flock" - his kids. 
 
There were always a few who came to mock or taunt or even disrupt the time-honored ritual of visiting the Santa Claus’s helper. Except for the littlest ones, most kids understood he was only Santa’s "helper," a stand-in, a go-between, sort of like a bridge. But most of them also wanted the ritual to work. There was something about telling him what they wanted for Christmas that made each Christmas more real, a sort-of commitment to a mysterious - but very genuine and powerful - reality.  Even the doubters actually conspired to make the visit to "Santa" continue to work through the years. 
 
He checked himself.  Kids, he remembered, were also unpredictable. Sometimes, they asked for way too much with a glint in their eye and a set of their jaw that always troubled him. Sometimes, they whispered the saddest secrets in his ear, like pint-size grown-ups or suspects under questioning. Sometimes, they choked back tears as they told a story that had little to do with a "wish" list.
 
Jesse thought about all the times he'd just gone through the motions, the times he hadn't really "listened," hurried the kid along with not so much as a "Ho, ho, ho," handing out the gift from Santa out of bored routine, heedless of what this moment meant to this child. He could have been more patient with the fidgety, more gentle with the awkward, more forgiving of the naughty, more empathetic to the needy.
 
Jesse finally felt a wave of genuine sleepiness sweep over him. He wondered briefly if he'd do this again next advent. Then, a strange thought struck him. They say that the name "Santa" is derived from the Latin word for "holy." It was a disquieting thought but, after a momentary panic, Jesse chuckled softly to himself ... and fell asleep … 'til the last stop on the bus.