The Hunt
By Amy Eye
Ok, so this is it. I have my net—check. I have my motion sensor camera—check. I have my bug spray—check. This year, I will NOT fail. It’s now or never.
Santa is MINE.
Sure, my past endeavors haven’t been successful. But I am in the 7th grade this year—practically an adult. If I can’t do it now, I never will.
All the attempts I made before? They were just practice for tonight. Well, all the attempts except for the first few, anyway. Who counts stuff you do when you were a baby? You don’t really grow up ‘til you hit, like, the 5th grade. OK, my 5th grade year doesn’t count either…wait. Lemme tell you how everything has gone so far, you’ll see what I am talking about.
My first attempt at seeing Santa was when I was in Kindergarten. My mom showed me a freaking cool thing on the internet where NASA was tracking Santa. I stared at that little red dot on the screen for hours. If they could get him as a little red light, why could they not get his picture? Mom once showed me my house from satellite pictures and they couldn’t take Santa’s picture? Come on!
Mom kept telling me that I needed to go to sleep so he would come – that he wouldn’t show up unless everyone was zonked out. That’s when the idea hit me. Just pretend to sleep for a while—at least ‘til mom went to sleep. Then I would go all sneaky-like and wait for him.
So I waited until I heard my dad snoring in the next room and I snuck into the living room. I stuck my head up the chimney. Ok—seriously what happened next was so uncool. It almost scarred me for life. A stinking spider fell on my face when I was looking up. I screamed (YES, like a little kid!) and ran out of there, avoiding knocking the tree over but colliding with the picture of Grandpa Al and Grandma Pam. I knew I was in major trouble when it broke, but I couldn’t see anything because I was trying to make sure the spider hadn’t burrowed into my eyeballs. Oh shut up – you know you would have screamed too. That spider was huge. Seriously.
So that was the end of my first Santa-hunting expedition. My first-grade year wasn’t much better, but at least I didn’t end up almost wetting myself. I camped out in front of the computer again, that little red blip on the screen was freaking amazing—it had all of my attention. Once Mom told me it was time to go to bed, I had my new plan all ready in my head. This year I was not sticking any body parts in any dark, gloomy places. (Stupid freaking spider.) I was simply going to wait in the chair right next to where we set the milk and cookies out. He always ate them, so there was no way he was going to pull any tricks. He was going to have to go through me to get the cookies; I was ready.
I put my snow boots on in case he knocked anything loose from the chimney—I may have grabbed a bat too. But I tucked it behind the chair, Santa didn’t need to see it unless it was absolutely necessary. If anything huge (monster tarantulas, maybe?) came out of there with him, then I would bring it out. He would have thanked me for saving his life. I never had a chance to save his life. I never saw anything knocked out of the chimney. Yup—guess what? I couldn’t hang with it. I was out cold before midnight. Go figure. I didn’t have a really good reason for my mom about the bat being in the house, either. Stalking mutant spiders sounded stupid, and she didn’t believe it. I got lectured about having outside toys in the house before I was even able to open my presents. Bummer on Christmas day. But I did get a pair of roller blades that year. It was pretty cool.
Now don’t start thinking all of my ideas were that lame. Because they really weren’t. Like my second grade year—that could have been so epic. But no, it wasn’t. I had the best plan ever—the BEST! Pretzels and popcorn. Yes. Pretzels and popcorn. I had those and a midday nap working for me. I was on top of things. I was not falling asleep this year and I had a can of bug spray. Now you may be asking why I felt the need to bring out a full, brand-new bag of pretzels and a freshly popped bag of popcorn. Because I was a 2nd grade GENIUS—that’s why. I wasn’t going to be filling up on these tasty treats, oh no. I sprinkled them in front of the fireplace. Santa would step on the food and the crackling would alert me to run into the living room to catch him. I was going to pretend I was sleeping in my room, and when things started crunching – he was mine! Soda in one hand and bug spray in the other (told you I was pretty much scarred for life), I went to my room and closed the door.
Mom apparently drank too much eggnog and was up not too long after I set my trap. On her way back from the bathroom, I guess she was awake enough to see what I’d done to the floor in the living room. I tried to scramble to my bed as I heard her opening my door. But I was too slow and forgot to grab my soda. The door knocked my soda all over the floor and she saw me jump into bed. I spent the next few hours cleaning up soda, vacuuming up popcorn and pretzels, and listening to yet another Christmas lecture—double whammy this time: jumping in bed and food outside of the kitchen. (Weren’t moms supposed to be super sweet and stuff on Christmas? Could someone e-mail my mom and tell her that?) So while I had a totally great trap, Mom had to ruin it. So that was not my fault.
I think she tried to make up for it though the next year. She knew how much I really wanted to catch him, so she promised to stay up with me. I was really happy. I not only got to stay up late and wait for Santa, I had an adult willing to help me. I learned the hard way that adults don’t think things through. Especially when it comes to this. She had no clue. At first it was great! We turned on some Christmas tunes, set up the nativity, ate some of the extra cookies from what we baked for Santa, and danced around a bit.
Mom wanted to show me some pics of me from some of my first few Christmases. Now that I was a big 3rd grader, she wanted to show me how far I had come. I will admit; I was a cute baby. There I was in nothing but a diaper and Santa hat (better than being naked in the tub) – then I was pulling the beard of one of the Mall Santas (those posers). In later pics, I was drawing on some wrapping paper that we wrapped one of my dad’s presents in—yes, I was talented even back then. Once we got through all of those, Mom was on a roll. She started pulling out album after album. (I’m so happy we have digital cameras out now—those albums are heavy! I know; she piled about four on my lap.)
Next came out the pictures from when she was little, which was kinda cool until she started going into all of her family and her cousins and uncles that I have never met. I love my mom, but REALLY? My eyelids started drooping when I had to hear about her Uncle Brandon, and all the funny stories he used to tell. By the time she got to Uncle Sean and Aunt Jenn, I was DONE. It was a conspiracy. She bored me to sleep. Come to think of it, I really don’t think she was trying to make up for last year at all. It was revenge for last year. Well, at least I didn’t get lectured that year. BONUS.
Ever get that crampy feeling in your tummy, like you have to go to the bathroom, but you can’t? The next year I was getting that way close to Christmas. All my friends knew about my plans to catch Santa, and every year they got meaner about it. They kept teasing me about how I was never going to catch him. Some of them even tried to tell me there was no Santa. I spent a really long lunch hour in the principal’s office after Cally said that. She won’t ever tell me there isn’t a Santa again. She looked pretty stupid with chocolate pudding in her hair. She ran off crying. Serves her right. The main problem? Principal Hebert didn’t quite see things from my point of view. If you couldn’t have guessed by now, I ended up getting my Christmas lecture a bit early that year.
By the way, have you noticed by now that the whole spider thing hasn’t come up again? I told you that it almost scarred me for life, but when you grow up, you realize some things aren’t really as scary as they used to be. Except for when it comes to angry dads. Never, and I mean NEVER, set up a trap with a blanket near the fireplace without telling your parents. Dads especially hate it when they go to move the fire screen while holding a cup of hot coffee in one hand with a log for the fire tucked up under his other arm. It was supposed to do this nifty *whoosh* thing and open up like you see in all the
cartoons. Except it just kinda yanked the blanket off the side table and tripped Dad up, making him spill his hot coffee all down his front. Not one, but TWO lectures this year. It was a sad year to be a Santa hunter.
Ok, I know I told you in the beginning about really growing up once you hit the 5th grade, and this is totally true. I proved myself to really be growing up when I didn’t let being sick stop me. I even had pneumonia, and I didn’t wuss out. My best friend, Shannon, let me borrow a super-sweet video camera. Not sure how much Shannon’s parents knew about it, but it was too good to pass up. I set the whole thing up; the whole living room was in view. I felt really crappy, so I shoved a couple of new tissues up my nose to keep it from dripping (don’t even pretend you have never done this), hit record and made my way back to bed.
No way to fail, right? Yea, sure—if you don’t have a 100-pound Rottweiler. A Rottweiler who apparently isn’t camera shy in the least. Bella, the dog who used to be my favorite dog in the whole wide world, started sniffing around the camera. (I know this because I got to see it all on the tape the next morning.) In her sniffing, she knocked it over and obviously thought she hurt it because she started LICKING the lens! And it must have tasted great because she kept licking it for about five minutes. Now this thing was covered in gross dog drool and then she decided she wanted to nap, so I have a lovely wide view of Bella’s backside for hours. Did you know that dogs dream? She had to be dreaming because she was kicking in her sleep and managed to kick the camera just enough to where all I could see later on were shadows over her big freaking body moving around in the living room. I was so mad at her that I didn’t give her the Christmas bone I bought for her until a week after Christmas.
Last year—oh boy—last year. Mom decided that we were going to go on a trip and see all those wonderful people in the photo albums I told you about just a little bit ago. I had no idea how in the world I was going to even have a chance of getting my Santa hunt going this year. I was in a new place, and I had no idea what I would have to work with. Would everyone leave me alone long enough to plan things out? I got there and had the best idea. Well, this best idea came after I learned I was the OLDEST of all the cousins. That kinda made me the leader. They all had to listen to me.
While the adults were all in the other room drinking eggnog and watching White Christmas, I was laying down the rules on how things were going to go that night. I had a whole army at my disposal. Granted, Elizabeth and Jeff were barely able to walk, and Alexis, Katie, John and Dan weren’t even in the 5th grade yet, but they were MY army. And with me in charge, how could we not rock this plan? Let me tell you how we did not rock my plan.
Elizabeth and Jeff cried most of the time—so my aunts, Jessie and Becca, came in and took them away, giving them sippy cups and putting them in their playpens in the same room with the adults. Two of my army down, but the reduction in noise was crucial for stealth mode. The suckers I gave to Alexis and John ended up stuck to the cat. (We got them out, but we ended up in trouble for cutting the cat’s hair. You could hardly see the bald spot!!)
Katie and Dan would not settle down. They were flying through the room on roller blades. Those are SO NOT COOL in the house—why was I happy about getting those when I was younger? My toes still hurt from thinking about it. They also got some theme song to a random kids show stuck in my head. They must have contests to see who can write the most annoying songs for little kids’ shows!! I decided that night that I was never having children—ever. I was so mad, I yelled at all of them telling them I hoped they all had to deal with brats like them when they got older and they could try to get Santa without me—I was going to bed. Yea—not my best moment. Santa got a break that year. But no more.
Now I sit tucked to the side of the fireplace, my face is coated in war paint and I’m wearing my all-black ninja suit. The motion-sensor camera is on the coffee table pointed right at the fireplace. I saved up all year for that camera. Who needed video games and new toys when I was on a mission? The flash on this baby is bright enough to stop Bambi in the middle of the road. The net is tucked up underneath me. My dad said that he once used it to pull in a 50-pound fish. (I don’t ever remember seeing this fish – but it had to mean it was strong.) I will spring up once the flash goes off, blinding Santa. The net is there in case he tries to scurry back up the chimney before I can get a hold of him. The spider spray is sitting next to the hearth. (Nope – don’t want to hear it, I may not be scared, but I’m not stupid.) I need to check the time on my cell phone. It is almost 1:30 am. He should be here any minute. I will get him. It’s now or never. Shhhh!!!! I hear something!!!!