We were a 1950’s American family of five.

In 1958 we moved to suburban Philadelphia for our young father’s job promotion in a bit of a Mad Men’s corporate culture, as a prelude to our beautiful and energetic mother’s pending liberation as a 60’s woman and into the formative years for we three sons – 11, 9, & 7. It was an exciting time and we were a happy and fortunate family.

I was the middle- a mostly good thing but also a challenge when it came to the inevitable fraternal squabbles which arose from time to time. But we also had our self-styled “Brothers Club” which assured our cohesion, although our adult years brought challenges and heartbreak.

Like my brothers, I attended the local public school … close enough to walk to except in bad weather when I took the bus. We were lucky to spend summers at camp and on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, a place we all came to adore.

Our “school year” life was of dinners around the kitchen table and vigorous conservations about our days. Our Sunday “dinners” – actually at lunchtime after church – were at the dining room table. Ours was a little like My Three Sons, with a bit of Leave It To Beaver.

We played touch football in the fall, kick the can on spring evenings and rode our bicycles all of the time. TV was only allowed for weekend sports and Sunday evening for The Wonderful World of Disney.

JFK was in office and James Bond had come to the silver screen, but the Beatles had not yet arrived … such a long but short time ago.

Holidays for us were of that era – not quite Norman Rockwell but well before the more modern electronic world which was rapidly emerging. I think Santa needed lots of time to make the pre-plastic toys which we were fortunate to receive if we were good boys.

Our move closer to the Eastern Shore allowed our very dear and special to us maternal grandparents to join us for Christmas Eve dinner and midnight church – actually, the service was not really at midnight so that we could be in bed fast asleep before Santa’s annual shortly after midnight trip down our chimney. Of course, milk and cookies were awaiting his arrival.

Speaking of Santa, we brothers looked forward to our opportunity to sit on his knee and whisper our hopes into his ear – at Wanamaker’s, a wonderful but now of the past department store. All in all, I was a true believer in Santa Claus. Santa was surely for real for me.

But the story I want to tell which arose out of my bucolic, carefree and seemingly immutable family life is about my pal Oliver and his – and my – Christmas surprise.

I met Oliver on my first day at a new school and we immediately became fast friends. He was from a broken family, the youngest of five children being raised by a single mother who worked as a housekeeper. But that did not mean anything to us.

Oliver and I lived close enough that we could visit on our bikes. I cannot recall all of the things we talked about but do remember well our “BFF” friendship, the likes of which are special for those who have that good fortune. We were both color blind to our differences.

In those days – and perhaps sometimes now I guess – growing boys needed a bigger bike every few years, and a new bike was a very big deal.

Because of his family situation, Santa could not be as generous to Oliver as he was to me. But a friendship like ours was such that our material and cultural differences meant nothing to us. It was that kind of deal.

The “big” gift which I wanted from Santa in 1962 was a new bike. And yes, Oliver also wanted a new bike.

His bike was older than mine – a “pass down” from older brothers. But he told me that he did not think he had much of a chance to get one. I was too young to understand why, so when I sat on Santa’s lap at Wanamaker’s I asked him to please also bring a new bike for my bud Oliver because he too had been a good boy.

When my family opened our gifts on Christmas morning, I was a little disappointed – there was no new bike under the tree. But then my father asked me to go out to the garage with him.

And there·it was …     a shiny and brand new bike. Santa had put it there, and it was perfect.

When I next saw Oliver on the first day of school in the new year he was ecstatic. Santa had also brought him a new bike. He told me that it was on the front porch of his home Christmas morning and none of his siblings received anything like it. Yes, we both agreed that there surely was a Santa Claus.

Oliver and I could not get together on our bikes until that rare warm winter day a few weeks later. And when we met, we were both startled and amazed … Santa Claus had brought us the exact same bike! … except that his was red and mine was green.

There was not much more talk about our Christmas bikes – there was too much else to do in our busy young lives – but our bikes were well used by the end of the summer. Oliver and I were both on the top of the world – new bikes and our friendship.

Unfortunately for Oliver and me, that fall my father’s business career took my family to another city far away. It was there, in my fifth grade year, that my class was challenged by our teacher to explain two things – is there a Santa Claus? . . . and what is the true meaning of Christmas?

By that time, I was worldly and wise – or so I thought – because I knew that Santa did not really exist. That was just for kids. But wait, what about Oliver’s and my bikes? If there is no Santa Claus, how could it be that both of us received a bike for Christmas?

And then I had my Christmas epiphany. My father knew what kind of bike I had wanted but Oliver’s father was not around. Could it be?

In an instant it became clear. Of course, my father had bought two bikes . . . one for Oliver and one for me. Wow. I then knew forever that Santa Claus and the meaning of Christmas were one and the same – the spirit of giving and sharing without accolade or fanfare – the purest and most selfless generosity.

A couple of years later, I mentioned that Christmas of 1962 to my father, and he confirmed what I had figured. Yes, he had bought Oliver’s bike and put it on his porch shortly before dawn that Christmas morning of 1962.

He told me that it was as good for him as it was for Oliver and me. I was as proud of my father as a boy could be. The lesson he taught me needed no more study – it was profound and forever … yes indeed, the enlightenment of a young man for which I will be eternally grateful, a gift of which is among the greatest a son can receive from his father.

I never saw Oliver again as the winds of our lives set us on different tacks into the future. But even now, 50 years later, the story of Oliver’s bike brings me great joy and perspective which I hope I can share with others.

I have often wondered whether that true spirit of Christmas and the joy of giving had blessed Oliver’s life as it had mine and whether he ever figured out about our new bikes. I would not be surprised if it did … he was that kind of kid.

Philip W. Hoon December, 2012