Mike Royko is on vacation. In his absence, we are reprinting some of his favorite columns. This column first appeared on Dec. 26, 1969. Those of us who grew up in a big city can sometimes feel we missed out on the typical American Christmas.
The schoolbooks always showed it in a setting where people got syrup from maple trees, took sleigh rides, cut their own Christmas tree in the forest and cooked in big farm kitchens.
Yet, you never read the reminiscences of somebody like my friend Slats Grobnik. The scene of his childhood -- a second-floor flat above a tavern with the L tracks in back -- is never shown on postcards.
But Slats has warm memories.
The Grobniks never cut down their own Christmas tree. They got theirs from Leo the mover, who sold trees in an empty lot next to his moving store.
Buying a tree from Leo took more skill, really, than chopping one down in the forest, because Leo was an early pioneer in creating artificial trees. But you never knew when you got one.
Leo used to spend half of his time in his garage, drilling holes in the trunks of scrawny trees, and gluing branches in to fill out the bare spots.
He'd hold up a tree, away from the glow of the street light, and say:
"Look'dis beauty. The trunk's straight as broomstick."
"It ought to be," Mr. Grobnik would say, "since the trunk happens to be a broomstick, you no-good thief."
The Grobniks never went for a sleigh ride, although Mr. Grobnik rode in a few paddy wagons, but they had a family tradition that was something like a sleigh ride.
Every Christmas Eve in the middle of the afternoon, Mrs. Grobnik would bundle up Slats and his brother Fats, and they would ride a streetcar to the plant where Mr. Grobnik worked.
When he came out they would greet him and the whole family would ride home together on the streetcar.
It was partly sentiment, but it was mostly a way of making sure Mr. Grobnik didn't stop and blow his Christmas check on Division Street.
In the evening, Slats and his brother would hang their stockings. The first year Slats was old enough to do this, he looked at the oil stove in the parlor and said:
"I heard on the radio where you are supposed to hang your stockings by the fireplace. How come we ain't got a fireplace, pa?"
Slats' father explained that if they had a fireplace, and if somebody as fat as Santa could come down through it, any two-bit burglar in the neighborhood could do the same, and that's why they didn't have one.
"How's he going to get in then?" Slats asked.
"We'll leave the kitchen door unlatched," said Mrs. Grobnik, "like we do when your father goes on Division Street."
Satisfied, Slats and his brother Fats would hang their stockings by the oven on the kitchen stove, the closest thing they had to a fireplace, and got into bed.
Actually, Slats used one of his father's size 16 work stockings. He later explained, "I figured a guy who had to make that many stops in one night wouldn't have time to measure nobody's feet."
And in the morning, the stockings would be loaded to the brim, and by the time they sat down to Christmas dinner, so was Mr. Grobnik.
Like all kids, Slats had to find out one day that there was no Santa. He still remembers.
He was awakened during the night by the sound of somebody moving about in the kitchen.
Slats crept from his bed, hoping at last to catch a glimpse of Santa.
But there, by the kitchen stove, stood his father in his long underwear, his arms loaded with gifts.
Slats bounded through the kitchen into his parents' bedroom, howling:
"Ma, get up quick -- pa's filching every present Santa left for us!"
So that's when his parents decided -- when Slats picked up the phone and started yelling for the cops -- that he ought to know the truth.