Santa Claus Is Real, and He Wears a Coon Skin Cap

He doesn't wear red, or live at the North Pole, either.

Growing up in California’s Central Valley, my family lived just a few miles from I-5 (or “the five,” as Californians like to say), so people would always drop in on us as they drove up and down the interstate.

When my uncles were in college, they’d often show up at our house randomly as they drove between where they lived and where they were going to school. They were coming and going from places like Stockton (where we lived), Bakersfield, Fresno, San Diego, and Chico, and they’d show up at random intervals, especially around holidays.

This was always a pleasant surprise for me, and one of the highlights was that they’d bring strangers with them—fellow college students, usually from other countries, who became fast friends and made a big impression on me. I can still remember their names, their faces, and the places they were from.

Hax was from Germany. Stefan and Patrice were from France. Faud was from India. Mika, Mokoto and Atsushi all were from Japan. Jason and Diana were from China, but they told us to call them by their “American names” since we couldn’t pronounce their real names in Mandarin.

Of all the international students that came to our house, though, Nimi made the strongest impression on me.

Nimi was from Sri Lanka, and he was an extraordinarily short man. You might have even called him tiny. His short stature made him immediately likeable to me, because, even though he was full-grown adult, we were the same height. That made me feel big, and old, and proud.

I had a great time playing with Nimi: he was a good sport, and we’d play frisbee and take turns riding on the skateboard that Eibun (a Japanese student) had given me.

I heard about how Nimi and a bunch of his other tiny Sri Lankan friends would sometimes go to a laundromat when they were bored. Not to wash and dry their clothes but to go joyriding inside the dryers.

One of them would climb inside a clothing dryer, the story goes, while another friend would close the glass door, insert some coins, and press the “start” button, and another friend would “keep watch” to make sure nobody saw them.

They’d all crowd around the dryer, hooting and hollering as they watched the first guy spin around and around inside the dryer.

Then, they’d open the door, and pull the guy out, and laugh even harder as they watched him try to “walk it off,” wobbling and falling over like a drunkard from being so dizzy. Then it was on to the next guy and the next, riding the dryer until they’d all been sufficiently spun.

Whether this was done during a weekend of heavy drinking after college finals, I’m not sure. But what was amazing to me was these grown men were small enough to fit inside a clothes dryer in the first place and that nobody ever got hurt or died during these juvenile hijinks in the second place.

I have to admit: this all sounded like a lot of fun, and I wished I could give it a try.

One year, Nimi visited us for Thanksgiving, and he wore a “coon skin cap” made out of raccoon fur, complete with a dangling bushy tail and everything.

I was jealous: it was the coolest hat I had ever seen. I boldly asked him if I could borrow it, and surprisingly, he let me. I wore that hat all day. I was so proud: I looked just like Davey Crockett.

A couple of days after Nimi and my uncles went back to college, my mom was doing the laundry and discovered some underwear she didn’t recognize at all. It was a pair of very small men’s briefs… and it was purple.

She showed it to me and asked if I had any idea whose underwear it was. I didn’t have a clue.

I laughed out loud at the absurd idea of a man wearing purple underwear. The whole scenario was just so bizarre: how did some random man’s underwear just spontaneously manifest out of nothing? It was crazy.

We talked about who it belonged to. It was clear that it had been left behind by one of our recent guests. But who? The secret was in its size.

Aha! Looking at how small the underwear was, it had to be Nimi. Nobody else we knew was that small.

But what should we do with them now? Throw them away? That seemed wasteful. Mail them to him? The thought of mailing a man his lost underwear was just ridiculous and seemed to be more trouble than it was worth.

On a whim, my mom asked me, “Ronny, why don’t you try them on and see if they fit?”

Embarrassed, I did. Amazingly, they fit perfectly. I was still outraged at the very idea of purple underwear for boys, but I liked Nimi so much and thought he was cool. He wore a coon skin cap, and I really liked that. Maybe I could wear his underwear, too?

They looked just like this.

So, for the next year or so, if you looked in my laundry basket, you’d see my underwear collection consisted of lots of Fruit of the Loom tighty-whities and ONE pair of purple men’s briefs.

When Christmas came a few weeks later, a mysterious, nondescript white box showed up in the mail that nobody was expecting. It was addressed to me.

It had no return label, just a stamp in red ink in the top left corner that said: “Santa Claus, the North Pole.”

This was embarrassing, partly because I knew Santa wasn’t real and partly because we weren’t allowed to celebrate Santa in our family. So, when my mom looked at the box and then at me and asked, “Huh? What is this? Who sent this to you?” I had absolutely no idea what to say.

I was holding what felt like a naughty box from some stranger I didn’t know who was pretending to be Santa Claus.

But why? And who was it? And why was I the only one who got a box like this?

Was this a joke from a bully playing a prank on me? What could possibly be inside it?

I cautiously cut the tape and opened the box. Inside it, I was shocked to see a brand-new coon skin cap! I was absolutely thrilled! This was the best day of my life!

I still couldn’t figure out where on earth it came from, though. There was no letter inside, no card, no receipt, no notes at all—just a raccoon hat with no explanation whatsoever.

Once again, my parents and I were presented with a piece of clothing that popped up out of nowhere, and we had to try to guess who it belonged to.

After thinking about it for a while, we decided that, once again, Nimi was the answer.

It had to have been Nimi.

He had just visited our house, so he would have known our address, and he was the one who owned the original coon skin cap I found so fascinating in the first place.

And so, on that day, in a strange way, I discovered that despite what my parents had always taught me, Santa Claus isn’t mythical at all. Santa is actually a real person who gives presents to good little children.

Except Santa Claus isn’t a tall, fat man from the North Pole who wears a red robe and a stocking cap and rides reindeer through the air like he’s portrayed on TV.

In real life, Santa Claus is actually a short, skinny man from Sri Lanka who wears purple underwear and a coon skin cap and rides clothes dryers at a laundromat.

Thanks to my mini Santa Claus, I wore that coon skin cap everywhere… for months, perhaps even years. People instantly recognized it when they saw me, and they’d comment on it.

Sometimes, they’d get it right: “Wow, that’s a cool hat! You look just like Davey Crockett!” they’d say. I loved it when people said that.

Every once in a while, some people would say I looked like some guy named Daniel Boone. This was very annoying. Who on earth was Daniel Boone? I quickly corrected those people.

“No, this is a DAVEY CROCKETT hat. I got it from Nimi. He’s from Sri Lanka.”

Adults would just smile and nod politely. I can’t imagine how loony I must have sounded, and yet, somehow, everything I said was true.

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