I remember this...

I remember when I was little the best part of Christmas was always the Firemen's Christmas Party held every year for families on the base where we were stationed. It was not a glamourous event, we were not the families of officers, so it wasn't held in the mess hall, it was held near the air strip in one of those quonset buildings that looked like a giant tin can half buried in the snow, which is way more cool. There was a huge Christmas tree and the place was filled with picnic tables where the families would sit. Well, mostly the grown ups would sit there with their coats on and the kids would tear around like crazy, waiting for Santa. Santa would sit at the very front of the hall in a giant wooden office chair with hard arms that would dig into your back when you sat on Santa's knee to get your gift. Santa smelled good like my Dad, of Old Spice and Irish Spring soap and he sounded just like Dad's best friend, who always seemed to arrive to the party late. He would "Ho Ho Ho" and heave you up on his knee and ask if you'd been good, and he always knew your name. Santa had two sacks of gifts, one labeled "Boy" the other "Girl" - I knew this was a trick. I always asked Santa for a "Boy Present" because the gifts for girls were always cheap crap, like dolls that were supposed to be Barbies but weren't; their legs didn't bend and their arms and heads pulled off so easily they barely lasted to the end of the Christmas Party. The best gift I ever got was a blue see through plastic ray gun that had a metal trigger and the gun shot sparks when you pulled the trigger. I loved that gun. Here, look at this:
http://www.neatstuff.net/guns/Guns.html