Columns and Carols: A Millennial Christmas Memory
Shantell Hinton Hill
Growing up in a small town in Arkansas circa the late 1980s, my fondest Christmas memories include going to the local downtown bank where my mom worked and sitting on Santa’s knee to take pictures and sing carols with the other children of the bank’s employees. At the time, if memory serves me correctly, Mom was a teller at the premier bank in our town. At least, that’s the pride with which I viewed my mother as a young girl. She was a single mom to me and my older brother — and though we were latch key kids in every sense of the word — she always managed to make Christmas a magical time for us.
I remember going to those Christmas gatherings in that largesque, colonial style building as a tiny tot and singing yuletides and staring blankly at Santa. In hindsight, I realize now that before I had language for it, I kind of always knew Santa was a sham. It was my mom who was performing the miracles of providing presents in the form of toys and clothes for us every year. We knew it to be so because every year on Christmas Eve, my brother and I would sneak into our small living room, look under our beautifully decorated yet aging artificial tree, and inspect the gifts we’d just heard Momma lug from her room and place there especially for us. And, without her ever having to tell us Santa was a fairytale, we instinctively knew.
So, every year, when it came time for us to perform our gleeful anticipation of Santa’s arrival at the bank with the overly large columns and marble floors, we smiled and nodded our way through the evening full of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and “Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer.” Not for us — though I imagine it was entertaining to some degree — but for her. The teller of the bank that we called Momma, who was also the fortune teller of our whole world. Everything we needed, she somehow provided and produced. Everything we wished we had, she gave us the magic to create for ourselves. Everything she spoke over us, we accomplished. And, though she never knew it, we never needed to believe in Santa Claus because our biggest gift was always — and continues to be — her.
Of course, Christmas has evolved so much since I was a little girl. No more visits to the bank or taking photos with fake Santa (thank God!). But we still anticipate and appreciate Momma more and more with each passing year. Her presents remain highlights of the holiday season but her presence, always and forever, seals it with love that smells like warm sweet potato pie.
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About Shantell Hinton Hill
Shantell is an Electrical Engineer turned rebellious Pastor/Philanthropy Goddess. She is passionate about the intersections of justice, storytelling, ethics, and Black women’s spirituality. Shantell believes that words create worlds. And, she intentionally grounds her work in curating worlds that belong to Black women. Shantell’s body of written work includes freelance think-pieces, theological essays, and short stories/memoirs. She currently lives in Arkansas with her husband, Jeremy.
Follow Shantell on social media on Facebook @Shantell Hinton Hill and Instagram/Twitter @shantellhhill
