On Christmas Day, 1959, seven-year-old Alvin Sanders woke up to a house full of mouthwatering smells and a hope in his heart that Santa Claus had brought him the only item on his wish list that year.
I wanted a Lionel train set, the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»actor told the audience at a live TV taping of The Flame: Holiday Season Edition on Nov. 7 at The Cultch, where he was one of a dozen local performers to share Christmas memories.
Sanders grew optimistic when his mother sat him down on the floor in an area that had been cleared of furniture. His father entered the room carrying a big, yellow box.
My heart was pounding so hard, Sanders recalls. The smile on my face got so wide I thought it was going to rip the top of my head off my neck.
He opened the lid, and there it was. A Lionel train set, complete with engine, smoke stack, dining car and caboose.
Eagerly, he and his father began assembling the pieces. But when they picked up the caboose, they noticed its railing was bent. Really bent.
It was bent so bad that you couldnt put the caboose on the track, Sanders says.
His parents, visibly upset, told him to pack up the train set so they could return it to Santa.
I was stunned, Sanders says. I had never heard of anybody giving anything back to Santa Claus.
As promised, his father came home the next day with another Lionel train set in perfect working condition and any Christmas morning disappointment was all but forgotten.
The following Saturday, while Sanders and his mother were at the local department store, he noticed a shopping cart full of discarded open boxes. What really caught his eye was the big, yellow box on top. Out of his mothers eyeshot, Sanders peeked inside and saw a familiar-looking train set with a misshapen caboose.
This could not be a coincidence, he thought.
Sitting beside my mother on the bus on the way home I did a lot of heavy thinking, Sanders says.
He realized one of two things must be true: Either Santa shopped at the department store, or all the amazing Christmas gifts he had received in his short life had actually come from his own loving parents.
Sanders took his mothers hand which, since he was at the mature age of seven, was something he had not done in a while. She asked him what was wrong and he just looked up at her and said nothing.
ispresented with Metro Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»as part of itsCreate Memories, Not Garbagecampaign. It will be broadcast onShaw TV, Channel 4in December and will be available to view at MetroVancouver.org. Read WE Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»for more Christmas tales from this years storytellers.
