Asking Santa for a Magen David

Funny the things you remember from your childhood that seem perfectly reasonable, until you think about them and realize they're completely insane.  I was taking the trash out tonight and noticed my neighbor has a five-pointed star with old-fashioned Christmas bulbs in his window.  I had a similar star when I was a kid, which made me think about the circumstances around it.

It must have been December, and I must have been 9 or 10 and starting to question the existence of Santa Claus. I must have been to a friend's bar mitzvah because I'd only been to one bar mitzvah and I can't for the life of me think where else I would have picked up a small, blue, plastic six-pointed star.  I really liked that star and carried it everywhere until, probably Christmas Eve, it broke.  What I should have done was put it in the trash and forgotten about it.  What I did was write a note to Santa asking him, if he was real, to get me another star.  And, I added for no reason at all, it should be a big one.

My parents, bless them, should have written back, "get stuffed."  Instead -- and although I was completely ignorant at the time, I can now visualize it as if it were a movie -- my dad would have found the note at 9pm after we'd all gone to bed, rushed out into the insanity of last-minute shopping, gone to ten shops before finding a large, five-pointed star that lit up with old-fashioned Christmas bulbs, gotten home at  11pm and, rather than just put it under the tree, he took out his tall, rickety ladder, attached it to the chimney above the basketball hoop, ran an extension cord through the window and then wrote on my note, "Look outside."

I woke up, saw the note, went outside, looked up at the glowing star and...was disappointed it wasn't a six-pointed star.  I let my parents know that Santa had failed.  (Even at such a tender age, I was a complete shit.  Of course, they had no idea how much worse I would get.)

So that's the story.  I had that star for another 20 years, long after you could find replacement bulbs.  Every Christmas I would hang it up and think of my dad.  I think my ex-wife got the star, but maybe it's in my mom's garage; I don't really know.  (I think my ex-wife kept all of my baby photos, as well.)  Of course, if I'd kept the star I'm not really sure what I would do with it now.

In hindsight, maybe a little goyish boy asking for a Magen David at Christmas was a portent of things to come.  Or maybe it really was just insane.  The only thing I can say with any certainty is that my parents were saints and that star was a testament to their love.