Our local newspaper recently encouraged its readers to share a special Christmas memory. I have many precious memories, and several include visiting Santa Claus when he made his annual stop at our courthouse on Christmas Eve night. I'm sure there are pictures of these visits in archived newspapers, but I still have the images in my mind. Oh, those wonderful memories! The Fleming County Courthouse, sitting at the top of the hill in Flemingsburg, lights shining on the front...a beautiful sight to see! The steps leading up to the "front porch" and Santa Claus at the top, waiting with his bag of treats. The long line of children and parents seemed to go on forever and ever. Often those lines extended down the Courthouse Hill, but the memory that is most vivid to me is one that occurred during one of the last years I visited the jolly old elf. My parents, my brother, and I stood in a line that extended out West Main Street... past the old jail that's no longer there and the beautiful Methodist Church that still sits next door. I'm sure it was cold but I didn't feel it and I didn't worry about Santa because he was used to the cold...North Pole, remember? I don't recall impatient children, but I suspect that most of them felt like me. Santa Claus was waiting up those steps so I had to be on my best behavior! When I finally made it to the top of the steps, there he was! Santa Claus, with his big cloth bag filled with small individual bags. Oh, the joy that those brown paper sacks had to offer!
Those long-ago nights were special and most parents in our county took their children to experience the magic of the man in red. Magical nights because we believed! We believed that Santa Claus could somehow visit our small town on Christmas Eve but still manage to deliver toys to other boys and girls all over the world. He really did know if we had been good all year or just the past few weeks. He truly cared about our small town in Kentucky, and the pictures were right...he was as fat and jolly as we thought!
I was much older when I realized that my Daddy probably disappeared sometime during that long wait. I don't remember missing him at the time, but I do know that once we finally saw Santa Claus and returned home, Christmas had come. On his way out of Flemingsburg, Old Saint Nick made a stop at our house, and there, under our tree, were presents! My brother and I had been rewarded for trying to be good!
Many years have passed, past Christmases are now memories, but I have never forgotten those special Christmas Eve nights at the Fleming County Courthouse! I don't know how many years he made those visits during the mid-fifties to early sixties, but I do know that I was there, spending Christmas Eve with Santa Claus!
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