I grew up in a household that believed in Santa.

My late mother would pretend to whimper if anyone so much as suggested the slightest possibility that there might not be a Santa Claus. This she did well into my 50s.

But, at the same time, I did not have a specific belief in a jolly fat man in a red suit.

My mother used to love to tell this story about my own adamantine belief in Santa Claus / Sinterklaas / Father Christmas / et al.

One day in December, during Show and Tell at Chabot Elementary School in Oakland, California, one of my schoolmates announced that there was no such person as Santa. I took umbrage at this blasphemy, but was informed by my teacher that my schoolmate was correct. Biting my words and biding my time, I waited for recess. I slipped out the school gates and ran all the way home. I sneaked into the house (one could climb on the garage roof and enter through the kitchen window) and went to the library (it was one of those lovely old Victorian Berkeley homes with lots of rooms for every purpose), extracted from the encyclopedia the volume containing Saint Nicholas, and ran back to school.

As the school was 1.7 miles from home I missed some class time, causing no small consternation among the staff, but managed to return in time to blend in with the students returning from lunch break to the classrooms.

As soon as we all were settled back at our desks, I marched up to the front of the room, encyclopedia volume in hand, and proceeded to read from the article on St. Nicholas. I then repeated what my mother had taught me.

“Saint Nicholas was from the country we now call Turkey. He died a long time ago, but he was a good man who cared about children and other people. It made him sad when people did not have enough to eat or to take care of themselves, and he knew how important it is to get something special every once in a while. So, while he was alive he did his best to take care of people and never expected anything in return.

“People who believed the way he did started to copy him. Gradually even people who lived far away were copying him. Even after he died, people continued to copy his practice of giving gifts to others without expecting anything in return.

“As time went on, even people far, far away in different countries started copying him. Since the people in different countries speak different languages, they said his name in different ways. That’s why we have so many different names for him today. And since people in different countries dress differently and have different customs, that’s why he looks different in all the different pictures. Nobody knows what he really looks like except that he was a Greek man who was born in what is now Turkey.

“But it doesn’t matter, because the important thing is the lesson he taught about giving without expecting anything back.

“We all can keep the spirit of Saint Nicholas alive by copying him. Any time we do something nice for someone just to make them happy we become Santa Claus. , And getting to be part of making someone happy is the best present we can give to ourselves.”

I don’t really remember this, but my mother swore it was true. I do know that for some reason most of my teachers were surprisingly indulgent toward me, and allowed me to get away with things no one else could.

Remember, books make wonderful gifts!

Looking for a Christmas mystery? The Blue Carbuncle is the only canon Sherlock Holmes mystery set at Christmas time. If you would like a Hawaiian take on it, I invite you to read my pastiche, Ka Pōhaku Makamae.