This story on Chainletters.net called Santa, Is He Real? and on ForwardEasy.com called Christmas Adventure With Grandma is also posted on countless varieties of web sites under different titles. "True story about Santa" "Santa and Grandma" "Santa And Grampa" "Christmas With Grandma/Grandpa" "I Believe In Santa Claus" "A Christmas Story" "A True Christmas Story" Santa Claus The True Story" "No Santa?" "On Santa's Team" "So Do You Believe In Santa?" "Christmas Adventure With Grandma/Grandpa"
No one seems to know who wrote this story, and it circulates with different wording and even the character cast isn't consistent. Sometimes it's a grandma who the nameless little kid runs to in the beginning of the story, sometimes it's a grandpa. Only Mrs. Pollock and Bobby or Bobbie (Even that spelling varies) Decker are given names. We never find out anything about the person the story's supposed to be about. So, it is very unlikely this is a true story. Most re-shares claiming to be true stories are not.
So how about some compare and contrast between two versions? This will be followed up by commentary that should help weaken the emotional wallop this meme tries to inflict.
👧Meme1: On Santa's Team
👦Meme2: Christmas with Grandpa
🧒Memes: author unknown
👧Meme1: My grandma taught me everything about Christmas. I was just a kid.
👦Meme2: I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandpa. I was just a kid.
🧒Memes: I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit
👧Meme1: her
👦Meme2: him
🧒Memes: on the day my big sister dropped the bomb:
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Right, the one about Santa, that everyone eventually finds out...
🧒Memes: "There is no Santa Claus,"
👧Meme1: jeered my sister.
👦Meme2: she jeered.
🧒Memes: "Even dummies know that!"
My
👧Meme1: grandma
👦Meme2: Grandpa
🧒Memes: was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to
👧Meme1: her
👦Meme2: him
🧒Memes: that day because I knew
👧Meme1: she
👦Meme2: he
🧒Memes: would be straight with me. I knew
👧Meme1: Grandma
👦Meme2: Grandpa
🧒Memes: always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of
👧Meme1: her
👦Meme2: his
🧒Memes: world-famous cinnamon buns.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: World famous? Unless your grandmapa can decide on their gender and had a cinnamon bun-making franchise that most people have at least heard of… Well, anyway, so you went to Grandmapa for some answers and good eats, got it. But don't expect either one to really give you a straight answer. Adults are really slick about dodging the truth when it comes to this kind of stuff. Well, if they didn't encourage kids to believe in fairy-tales that turn out to be just that later on, there wouldn't be this problem to begin with.
👦Meme2: I knew they were world-famous, because Grandpa said so. It had to be true.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Pssh* Gullible little kid.
👧Meme1: Grandma
👦Meme2: Grandpa
🧒Memes: was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told
👧Meme1: her
👦Meme2: him
🧒Memes: everything.
👧Meme1: She
👦Meme2: He
🧒Memes: was ready for me.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: well, he/she was your grandpama, which means you weren't the first kid he/she had to give the big spin to. of course she/he was ready for you. Besides, he/she must've figured you'd be a real cinch to convince in any direction anyway.
🧒Memes: "No Santa Claus!"
👧Meme1:She
👦Meme2: he
🧒Memes: snorted. "Ridiculous! Don't believe it. That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad. Now, put on your coat, and let's go."
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: So much for being straight with you… Your good ol' granwhatever has just called your big sister a gossip and a liar for telling the literal truth.
🧒Memes: "Go? Go where,
👧Meme1: Grandma?"
👦Meme2: GrandPa?"
🧒Memes: I asked. I hadn't even finished my second world-famous, cinnamon bun.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Second? How many were you intending to have? I mean, if they are world famous, they would probably be pretty large and gooey good, and well, one Cinna-bon bun is plenty. You must've scarfed the first one down in the blink of an eye as you plunged right into your santa sister woes. Wow, you could out-do even me in a downer, desperate for comfort food.
🧒Memes: Where turned out to be Kerby's General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything.
As we walked through its doors,
👧Meme1: Grandma
👦Meme2: GrandPa
🧒Memes: handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah, I get it, this is another story set in Small Town America way back in the supposedly great old days where there was only one general store in town and everybody's grandparents made world famous cinnamon buns, and where you're gonna play Santa Claus and that's somehow supposed to mean Santa is real, well, it doesn't literally mean the man with the flying reindeer who sees you when you're asleep and knows when you're awake and comes down everybody's chimney that little kids are encouraged to believe in, is real. There's a big difference between believing in fairy tales because you don't yet know any better, and in playing Santa Claus to emulate the real ST. Nicholas who lived more than a thousand years ago. You can't just say something is true, then say it isn't, but it's okay to tell one lie because it supposedly helps kids be better. It doesn't work that way with everyone, not with me. It's like promising a great flight experience and then having it turn out to be anything but. The food on that flight was still food, it just wasn't at all what the customer expected or liked.
More on this belief VS. playing Santa later.
🧒Memes: Take this money,
👧Meme1: she
👦Meme2: he
🧒Memes: said, and buy something for someone who needs it. I'll wait for you in the car.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Rolling eyes* I knew it.
🧒Memes: Then
👧Meme1: she
👦Meme2: he
🧒Memes: turned and walked out of Kerby's.
I was only eight years old. I'd often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for. I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah, I get the idea. When you're on a mission to play Santa, that's pretty much what you gotta do.
👧Meme1: I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of
👧Meme1: Bobbie
👦Meme2: Bobby
🧒Memes: Decker.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: enter Bobbiey Decker in a dream/vision sequence, the poor kid who needs a lot of stuff that Cinnamon Bun Grandkid already has…
🧒Memes: He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs.Pollock's grade-two class.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Bleck, that couldn't be too pleasant.
🧒Memes: Bobbie Decker didn't have a coat. I knew that because he never went out for recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough; but all we kids knew that Bobby Decker didn't have a cough, and he didn't have a coat.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Okay hold it! Before Bobbyie Decker's hard luck poor kid description goes any further, there is a burning question that needs to be asked and likely won't get answered.
why didn't the teacher buy Bobby/ie Decker a jacket of some sort, or give him one to borrow, heck, why not at least look into the matter and what to do about it long before this? Why did Bobbie/y have to go without a coat, waiting for some other kid's grandma/pa to help their little grandkid play Santa Claus? This problem wouldn't have gone on so long if the adults were really on the ball.
The short answer to this is that then there wouldn't be a gushy chain letter story. Right...
But it's not like meme teachers have a great track record anyway. They're better at failing than teaching.
🧒Memes: I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy
👧Meme1: Bobbie
👦Meme2: Bobby
🧒Memes: Decker a coat. I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that. I didn't see a price tag, but ten dollars ought to buy anything.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: This coming from an eight-year-old who really believes his/her grandmapa's cinnamon buns are world famous just because Grandmapa said so. Yeah, this kid would believe anything.
🧒Memes: I put the coat and my ten-dollar bill on the counter and pushed them toward the lady behind it.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Okay, why is it so important for you to keep repeating the amount the bill is? Why not just say "money" for a change? I'm not going to forget one or two sentences later that you got ten dollars…
👧Meme1: She looked at the coat, the money, and me.
🧒Memes: "Is this a Christmas present for someone?"
👧Meme1: she
👦Meme2: the lady behind the counter
🧒Memes: asked kindly,
👦Meme2: as I laid my ten dollars down.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Argh - there you go again! Look, kid, I get it, I get it. You got ten large ones, by eight-year-old standards in the olden days. you were very, very, very proud of it. You were going to do what your grandpama told you and make a huge difference in Bobbyie Decker's life with this big ten bucks. I get it, kid, I really do. I just don't care about every single little pinch, glance, laying down, passing etc. you do with this bill, okay?
🧒Memes: "Yes," I replied shyly.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: You replied shyly? You're self-analyzing way too much. If you really wanted to convince me you really were shy, instead of trying to put on a big show of Santa Claus Bobbyie Decker heroism, you would've just described yourself as feeling shy. Your shy answer is scripted and designed to try making me envision the way this whole scene went down. I'm on to your tactics, you phoney.
🧒Memes: "It's for
👧Meme1: Bobbie.
👦Meme2: Bobby.
👧Meme1: He's in my class, and he doesn't have a coat.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf:Way to go, let everyone you flash your big ten smackers to, know, that you are really into being big-hearted while letting them know Bobbiey is so poor that he doesn't have a coat. *Pssh.* This could be overlooked from an eight-year-old, but writing a meme about it later to use as some sort of example to all doesn't work.
🧒Memes: The nice lady smiled at me. I didn't get any change, but she put the coat in a bag and wished me a Merry Christmas.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Yawn.* Oh, just get this over with...
🧒Memes: That evening,
👧Meme1: Grandma
👦Meme2: Grandpa
🧒Memes: helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and ribbons,
👧Meme1: and write,
👦Meme2: (a little tag fell out of the coat, and Grandpa tucked it in his Bible) and wrote,
🧒Memes: "To
👧Meme1: Bobbie,
👦Meme2: Bobby,
🧒Memes: From Santa Claus" on it
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: This is making me nauseated. I don't mind secret Santa among adults, because we all know he is make-believe. But this is different, and bringing the bible into the perpetuation of this lie really frosts me. It isn't a lie when all concerned know it's make-believe. It is a lie when the kid doesn't know the real story and is encouraged to believe in something he'll eventually find out isn't real in a year or a few.
👧Meme1:Grandma
👦Meme2: -- Grandpa
🧒Memes: said that Santa always insisted on secrecy.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, brother, talk about a cover-up. And if there really was a Bobbyie Decker, chances are he would find out from this chain letter that he got a coat from a classmate who wished to remain anonymous, not from the guy who's said to come down the chimney.
🧒Memes: Then
👧Meme1: she
👦Meme2: he
🧒Memes: drove me over to
👧Meme1: Bobbie
👦Meme2: Bobby
🧒Memes: Decker's house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially one of Santa's helpers.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: That doesn't confirm or disprove Santa either way. Playing Secret Santa doesn't actually make the jolly magic sleigh-riding, chimney-climber a literal reality. It's just a round-about way of trying to cover for fooling little kids and try to avoid some well-diserved wrath from these kids when they find out.
👧Meme1: Grandma
👦Meme2: Grandpa
🧒Memes: parked down the street from
👧Meme1: Bobbie's
👦Meme2: Bobby's
🧒Memes: house, and
👧Meme1: she
👦Meme2: he
🧒Memes: and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Ugh. This is sapping my will to live.
👧Meme1: Suddenly, Grandma
👦Meme2: Then Grandpa
🧒Memes: gave me a nudge. All right, Santa Claus,"
👧Meme1: she
👦Meme2: he
🧒Memes: whispered, "get going."
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Okay, hang on. I thought you were supposed to be merely Santa's helper, not Santa Claus. No wonder people get confused about whether or not impersonation is AOK or not so much.
That's something else I never agreed with. You're not really Santa Claus, you are only his helper, but you sign as him, and that's supposed to mean Santa is real even though what kids were encouraged to believe literally, isn't, and kids are supposed to just swallow this bollox - excuse me… No.
That never would've worked for me, and falls flat to this day.
I wasn't one bit interested in "Being Santa" at that age and playing Santa would've left me with just a big a hole as ever in my heart. All the giving in the world wouldn't make him real once he was revealed to be just something pretend.
It's like promising me a live kitten and then giving me only a kitty ornament in exchange for the money I paid you. Telling me "But this money will go to help this or that charity." won't turn that ornament into a real live kitten, won't convince me it is a real kitten, nor is it what I wanted. Do you think in that state of disappointment I'm really going to care if that money goes to a charity or not? If you told me it was from the beginning, fine, but I still wouldn't care at that point because I'm the one who got cheated. telling me after the fact when handing over a lousy ornament when I wanted and thought I was getting a real live kitten, is quite a few shades of wrong, and I think anyone would agree if we left Santa and kids out of the discussion.
But it's the same thing with the Santa business. The difference is that there are real kittens, and maybe one day I will get one. But once you find out there is no literal Santa Claus, you can never get a real one and you can never get that belief back.
Santa, going from this awesome man who could ride a sleigh and put gifts under the tree and in your stockings would be forever living only in the realm of fiction from now on. So this "being santa" would've done nothing but pour salt on the wound. It's not easy finding out somebody you believed in, doesn't exist and it was all an illusion that shatters when you start growing up.
Then, trying to humour me with "But we're being Santa and doing so much good for the next person" is so patronizing. See, I'm not the sort of person who takes nicely to being humoured into things. It's insulting. I'm not some simpleton who can just be lead around by the nose. "Oh, you're sad that Santa doesn't really come down the chimney. But Ocean, just think of all the good you're doing playing Santa for Bobby Decker or someone like him. That should make it aaaaaaaaallllllllllll better."
No - it does not!!
I don't want to play Santa.
I want something back that I never really had to begin with - something I will never have. And it was all so unnecessary... :(
🧒Memes: I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his doorbell
👧Meme1: twice
🧒Memes: and flew back to the safety of the bushes and
👧Meme1: Grandma.
👦Meme2: Grandpa.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: If Bobbiey believes the chimney legend, it's going to confuse him making him think Santa has suddenly taken to playing doorbell-ditching or whatever that game is called. especially if only his house was hit and not those in the rest of the town. if he's smart, he's going to wonder. He might not figure it out, but he would wonder what's up.
I would've known or at least guessed who really signed "Santa Claus" on that parcel, not a magical sleigh-riding, chimney-hopper. Only some mundane impersonator, however dear that person is. Further more, I would've known any parcel I would receive in the future that was also signed "Santa Claus" wasn't from the real live man who comes down the chimney and lives at the North Pole, because there is no such man. Instead, it would be some friend or relative who actually did the signing, not the revealed-to-be-fictional Santa Claus.
🧒Memes: Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood
👧Meme1: Bobbie.
👦Meme2: Bobby.
👧Meme1: He looked down, looked around, picked up his present, took it inside and closed the door.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Yawn* Oh, FCOL...!
👧Meme1: Forty
👦Meme2: Fifty
🧒Memes: years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, beside my
👧Meme1: grandma,
👦Meme2: Grandpa,
🧒Memes: in
👧Meme1: Bobbie
👦Meme2: Bobby
🧒Memes: Decker's bushes.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah, I'm so convinced, especially since Bobbie became Bobby a decade later, in the exact situation and you can't even remember how far back this story supposedly went.
🧒Memes: That night,
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Wait, we're back in time again?
🧒Memes: I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what
👧Meme1: Grandma
👦Meme2: Grandpa
🧒Memes: said they were: Ridiculous!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: First you were conned into believing in a man who comes down the chimney, then you were conned into believing playing Santa was the very same thing as saying "He's real!" when if another adult was to ask you, without any children present whether you literally believed in the magic sleigh-riding man, you would have to honestly answer "no". It's to the point where real isn't even real with you, and that is what's ridiculous.
🧒Memes: Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: There was once a real live man called Nicholas, who became a saint. That isn't the same thing as the fictitious sleigh-rider or everybody going around playing Secret Santa. A make-believe character can only be as alive as you can make him, and nobody has actually managed to literally make a real magic sleigh with flying reindeer, much less get someone to operate it.
👦Meme2: I still have the Bible, with the tag tucked inside: $19.95.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Why did the clerk let the boy or girl (I don't even know the main character's gender!) have the coat for nearly half price in the second version?
The simple answer to the clerk puzzle might be "Because it's Christmas!" but that doesn't make sense either. Wouldn't the clerk have said the child didn't have enough money but that he/she could go get whichever adult was in charge to cover the price, or wait for this adult to return and then buy the coat? I can see the clerk possibly shaving maybe 50 cents off the price and paying the remainder out of her own pocket, but this is $10 from $19.95. If she didn't make up the rest out of her own pocket, she could've got herself sacked for drastic and unauthorized price-lowering for the sake of special treatment to one person.
Why didn't the grandpa/grandma go in to help their kid out? This kid obviously knew nothing about what you could and couldn't get for around ten bucks. *Shakes head*
👦Meme2: He who has no Christmas in his heart will never find Christmas under a tree.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Duh. What does that have to do with the Bobbyie Decker story?
Replies to This Discussion (archived from the Ning board)
Reply by Beth
H'm! This one just goes to show you, chain-letters will keep on mutating as they plague the net! Like the nasty little germs they are...*scowl* Yuck.
Sheesh…get your story straight, crazy Christmas chain.
Reply by Capri
Yes! It all sounds more than a bit contrived with a few plot-holes not taken care of. If you don't let mushy stories yank you around by the emotions, you end up with more questions than ever once reading through this thing.
Reply by Beth
Mmmmhmm!
Exactly! Far too often, people let a poorly written, sappy-emotion rife story dupe them into doing something stupid. Ugh! Use your brains, people, or at least TRY to!
Reply by Capri
No kidding! :)
--end of old message board replies. --
Over and out.
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