The Santa Book

The Santa book was Judy’s idea. Prior to 2015. I came home from a monthly screenwriter meeting and Judy said, “I had this thought. How come no one has ever written a biography of Santa Claus? You know. Like where did he come from and how did he grow up and get to the North Pole? How did he get his super powers?”

At the next screenwriter get-together, I told the roundtable about Judy’s idea. There was a momentary silence. And then one of them quietly said, “Doug, nobody’s ever done that before.”

Okay. So now I’m baited. The hook is in.

I spend months reading about Santa Claus and all his tethers. And the more I read, the more I go yeah. Then I put my Anne Rice hat on. Santa can be whatever you want him to be. Rules can be toyed with. Double yeah.

I write a screenplay. I call it Yes, Virginia – a direct reference to a famous letter authored over a century ago by a young girl named Virginia O’Hanlon who wrote to the Chicago Sun newspaper’s editor to ask if Santa was real. If you’ve never read that editor’s reply, you owe yourself. I subtitled the script The Authorized Biography of Santa Claus. You know. Because no one’s ever done that before.

From the beginning, I wanted this to be a love letter to Judy. Especially since she gave me the idea in the first place.

The process wasn’t without ripples. I’ve done enough time on the keyboard to be able to categorically say screenwriting is the toughest writing skill. Okay, that’s according to me. But as you know, good scripts are rare. There’s a reason for that.

Over the 20-something years we’ve lived here, I’ve entered the Virginia Governor’s Screenplay Competition numerous times. People get film deals out of that competition. I never even got a sideways glance. Until Yes, Virginia.

The thing about the Governor’s competition is that unlike most screenplay competitions that totally ignore you during the rejection process, these anonymous judges send you a written critique, win or lose.

In my younger days, rejections pissed me off. But somewhere along the line, my skin developed a sense of humor.

I didn’t win that competition. But I got into the winner’s circle and I still have the letter a judge sent me. They started their critique by saying the moment they sat down to read my screenplay and saw it was related to Christmas, they wanted to just close the script.

“But then you had me by the middle of page one.”

They thought it was original in a good way. Different. Unexpected surprises. Really liked it. And that’s fine, but different and original are a hard sell. You’re kind of on your own waving to the people on the shore.

I have a couple of inspirational writer quotes posted in my computer room. My favorite stems from Howard Aiken.

“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If they are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.”

I had a conversation with the Richmond Film Office guru.

“Doug, if you can make something with Christmas that catches on? Dude, you’re set for life.”

I approached a casual acquaintance at the Virginia Film Festival who is a successful producer. She agreed to read my script – gave me her personal email.

Hated it. Wanted nothing to do with a Christmas story. I wasn’t upset. I’d approached her cold and she has real irons in the fire. And I don’t harbor bad feelings about differing opinions from decent people. Especially when she did me a favor. If she had shown any interest, I would have never written the book.

Here’s the deal. Okay. My deal. In my mind, things happen for a reason. Not saying I believe in total pre-destination, but in my case, I’ve had a lot of consequential things seem to fall from the sky, often arriving in times of need. I sometimes think about why things happen. Was my childhood with my mother worth it? Depends on how you look at the ending. If I hadn’t lived that early life, I wouldn’t have written the play Mother and Son and I wouldn’t have met Judy who played one of the roles. So in retrospect? Weighing things? I lucked out. Bad was spun into good.

And that’s the trajectory I wanted for Mr. Claus. Redemption from the ashes is always possible.

I want to be set for life. I would love to sell the rights for millions of dollars and steal off into the sunset.

But that’s not why I wrote the book. I wanted to create a balm for our souls in this time where civics and civility die daily on the vine. I wanted to remind us of what we are when we do things for the good. Might doesn’t make right. Right makes right.

When I looked at what I had in the screenplay story, I had cheated on content. Not so much out of laziness. I was trying to convey a century of history in under 2 hours. So in the original movie script, we go to the North Pole and then do kind of a compression of that history by fading pictures in and out. Time-lapse trickery.

When I decided to expand the story in book form, I used my screenplay as the framework. I wrote a book version. Sort of. This is where I got really lazy. When I got to the North Pole, I didn’t expand things much.

Judy read that first draft and was okay, but not bowled over. I have a friend named Pam who took a look. Pam is a writer herself and her critiques are spot on. I could tell she was being kind.

But 2 good things came out of our sit-down. After having read the end, she asked me if I was dying. I assured her I wasn’t. That meant she’d thought it was “true” in spots. But it was her second comment that blew the doors off.

“When you got to the North Pole, I thought that was where it was going to really take off, but I was disappointed. I wanted to see what happens there.”

I went home and thought about cheating my audience as well as myself. I didn’t like that about me. I’ve been guilty of that before and I sometimes give myself a good talking to.

“Stop being lazy. Work harder so you can play harder.”

Sometimes easier said than done.

I went to the North Pole and took a few years to write the 2nd draft.

Roll forward to COVID time. I’d done some work. Some good work, but not there yet. That 2nd version was pulled apart page by page with a friend of mine named Michael. He is a Vietnam vet, my Spiritual Gangster yoga instructor, and has experience as a book editor. I asked him if he would take a look and he agreed on the condition he could be honest even though we were friends.

But of course. At 70, I’m way past too soon.

We spent many an afternoon, sitting 6 feet apart on his porch, going through the draft, each of us with a paper copy of the book. We might spend hours talking about a paragraph or a character and then other passages were rubber-stamped as “works for me.”

Sometimes Michael would point to a word and say, “I don’t like that word.”

What comes out of small moments like that is your mind instantly offering up several alternatives, all better than the word Michael didn’t like. The beauty of having written a boatload of stuff over the decades is you learn craft and you learn how to fix things. You know what to do. You have choices. Almost effortlessly, you make changes with and without prejudice.

In my youth, I didn’t tweak my writing because I was convinced words came down from heaven to me on stone tablets. Just FYI, that’s an idiot’s approach. The important lesson a writer must learn is: Good writing is rewriting.

Working with other people becomes such a pleasure when I get past myself. When Paul or John didn’t like a line, it didn’t matter who wrote it. What mattered was whether the line was good or not. You make non-threatening quiet decisions for the benefit of everyone.

On one of those COVID afternoons at Michael’s house, he asked me if I was upset with his criticisms. I told him I wasn’t. I appreciated his candor. The book was getting better as we went – you could just feel the potential. You don’t get better unless people are honest with you. And his opinions, just like Pam’s, were pretty spot on. I can only think of a handful of scenes where we didn’t argue, but we did discuss at length and in the end found agreement on how to proceed.

We were almost done with the 2nd draft when he set the pages in his lap and just looked over at me.

”You know, you could put this out today and people would think it’s a good book. But if you’re willing to do the work, this could be a great book.”

More work required. Okay. I’m the guy who in my 20s wouldn’t go to sleep on a work night because I was driven. More typing? Not a problem. I began the 3rd draft in 2020.

I’m glad I didn’t go with that 2nd draft. I wanted to. I’d already commissioned the cover for the book. I felt, no, this is good. Hey, it was good in places, at least. But back to that question. Do you want to be good or do you want to be great?

The expansion into the North Pole was big in the 2nd draft, but would be dwarfed by what came next.

Over the next 5 years, I went and visited the North Pole from time to time. I took breaks. Long breaks. Sometimes I wouldn’t open up the file for months. And yet each time I strapped myself into the sleigh, I wondered what I was afraid of. Why was I staying away? Fear of success? Because once I was strapped in, I so enjoyed the places the story took me. And in today’s chaotic world, we all need to strap in and go somewhere magical. IMHO.

I was nearing the end of the rewrite around Thanksgiving 2025. I kept telling Judy, “Any day now!”

Yes, Virginia was never known by it’s formal title in our house – it was always referred to as “the Santa book.”

Judy told me several times over the last year to just stop talking about the Santa book. Michael was frustrated with me as well. “Do you have any pages you can show me? Where is it?”

Around the beginning of December 2025, Judy and I were sitting in our chairs watching TV. During a commercial break, she turned her head and leveled her eyes at me. “If you die before you finish this book, I will kill you.”

Judy often comes up with shit out of the blue and those instances always catch me a little off guard and usually make me laugh at the same time. But in this case, laughter would not have been the best medicine. There’s a part of me that knew she was really serious. Staring at me with malice. To be honest, living with me is not always easy and I am well aware I deserve a malice-laced glance on occasion. I try not to take offense.

I earn my lashes.

On one of the last days of December at 11:59 PM, I took my hands off the keyboard and sat back looking at the computer screen, muttering to myself, “Oh, wow. Am I done? I think I’m done.”

There’s done and done. Very rarely do I go back and look at my old stuff and not want to tweak. So I proceeded to read the draft and correct as I went. Spent some time editing until I felt I had a readable version worthy of sharing. Stephen King says when you finish something, you should print it out and hold the book in your hands – feel the physical weight. I must admit that experience was hugely satisfying. The manuscript weighs over 5 pounds. 360 single-spaced pages.

This 3rd draft made me happy. A draft is rarely perfect, but it made me happy. But now the real test. I’d told Michael and all my writer friends that since the book was dedicated to Judy, she got first dibs on the read. Heads nodded in agreement.

In the first part of January 2026, I presented the ream of paper to my bride. I got the side-eye and she warned me not to pressure her about reading right away. She’d been waiting on vague writer promises for years. There was a big part of me that was very insecure about handing it over. I found myself in a vulnerable place.

Judy and I met in 1980 and 5 years later, we put rings on. Even though we both have pasts, the rings marked a new beginning, and we stayed true to our commitments. I wanted to be committed and so did she.

I have never met a woman like Judy before or since. Or a person like her. I am so lucky. Or blessed as my old friend Jon Sorek once pointed out. Judy always looked great, but it was her aura of intelligence, kindness, and creativity. Not to mention a most wicked sense of humor. We have both laughed more with each other than anyone else. Witty chick meets official Class Clown of 1973.

Years ago, a friend remarked, “I’d love her even if she was a man!”

Indeed, most people seem to like her more than me. Perhaps because Judy doesn’t have what she describes as a resting Doug face where I always look like I’m either mad or want to kill someone. She was the first to tell me, “Fix your face.”

We were a powerhouse team from the get-go. We could do anything we set our minds to. And we did. Thousands of moments I can’t even catalog. Swinging from the chandeliers. I just look back and go “That was a great ride.”

The other day we were laughing about an incident that happened the first year we were married, living in the little town of Massenheim, Germany. Judy was driving us home one night on a dark desolate country road and we got into verbal fisticuffs. Don’t ask me about what. That memory, like most useless arguments, is long gone. But we were bitch-biting and Judy brought the car to a screeching halt.

“Do you want to drive?!”

“Yes, I do!”

I hopped out of the passenger side to storm around behind the car and assume my role as pilot and instead of sliding over into the passenger seat, Judy went pedal to the metal. Left me in a cloud of country road dust. Taking the road was a half-mile trek to the house.

Something in me snapped. “Oh, no, you didn’t!” I was pissed.

I made a calculation in my head. It would take Judy a minute or two to make it around to our driveway. “I think I can beat her,” I thought. Insane in retrospect, but when you lean that way anyway, it makes sense. I would cut her off at the pass. And then we would continue our heated exchange.

I ran diagonally through a farmer’s field. The moon was out, but it was dark. I ran like the wind. Hopped a fence. Today, I would probably shatter bones attempting this feat, but I was so mad I didn’t care.

I beat her to the house. Don’t ask me how I did that, but I did. Only thing was, by the time I hit the end of our driveway, I wasn’t mad anymore. I was laughing. I’d run off all my steam in my superhuman effort. Huffing and puffing. I couldn’t believe I was still alive.

I then proceeded to pull my pants down just as her headlights turned into the driveway. Grinning like an idiot. Judy was laughing hysterically before she even got out of the car.

The evening wrapped up very well.

Minimizing downtime is critical in relationships.

That’s the kind of energy we started out with. We felt like reincarnations of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. We never took no for an answer and we followed a dream – we wanted a lifelong happy relationship. Seems simple enough. But often what you pursue involves sacrifices and many tears get shed. Hard work required.

Our life together has turned out to be simple and complex – everything, everywhere all at once.

In the early 1970s, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull wrote a song called Thick as a Brick. It begins with his fingers dancing over acoustic guitar strings. And then he sings that iconic first line.

“Really don’t mind if you sit this one out.”

As a writer, I’ve had many, many experiences of reading or hearing a turn of a phrase I wish I’d written or said. Bad news, I didn’t write that first line. Good news, someone did. For all of us to enjoy.

When the album came out in 1972, critics were mixed. Not so much anymore.

I have no idea what kind of reaction others will have to the Santa book.

The biggest shift for readers will be tone that changes when we get to the North Pole. That’s not a mistake, but my critics may still be divided. I remember reading a Time review for The Deer Hunter decades ago. The critic mentioned the movie contained probably the bravest and most jarring cinematic cut in film history. We flip from a joyous hometown wedding celebration directly to the guys from the wedding deep in the throes of Vietnam terrors.

The Deer Hunter went from happy to horrible in that cut. My intention was to flip that – start out with the dark and then switch to light. I wanted to make a statement about technology. I wanted a specific delineation between the real world and a magical one where people do things for the right reasons. And I especially wanted the story peppered with intentional homage and cultural references. Most importantly, I wanted an innocent love story.

Others will be the judge of whether I pulled that hat trick off successfully. Others will judge my quilting skills. But I wasn’t worried about others.

I was worried about what Judy would think.

Writing alone is a touchy thing. You fly by the seat of your pants and tell yourself what you’re doing is okay even though there’s no cheerleading squad behind you. I go on my gut. Does it feel right? Does it feel true? Does it affect me? Will someone else get something positive from this? Will this be the balm I want for all of us?

Then comes that moment when you have to show your work. That comes with risk factors. Once you hand the story over, it belongs to the world and you are no longer safe from slings and arrows. Different people come with different filters and opinions.

Judy and I have known each other for 46 years. A lot of people don’t even live that long. Maintaining healthy relationships is difficult even when you feel like you have the best marriage in the world. Even when you laugh a lot like we do. Judy and I are both well aware of how fragile this existence is. That’s part of what makes a good relationship a little scary. The unspoken threat is knowing any part of your precarious foundation can be ripped from you in some random moment. As we get older, we see people break and slip away and we recognize how fortunate we are to still exist as a cohesive unit.

Your priorities realign. You don’t get upset with your partner for repeating the same story a hundred times. Instead of getting irritated, you find yourself reveling in the fact that your partner is still in the room able to tell the story to begin with. You revel in knowing how the story goes because you’ve heard it so many times. There’s a comfort in that place. There are much bigger fish to fry than getting irritated over someone repeating a story you know the ending to. Be happy you can still remember the endings.

Judy and I are opposites that attract. She will tell you that when she met me, I had all the warning signs. Wasn’t sure it would work out because of the volatility. And yet we have so much in common that makes us a duo. Even on our worst days, we are always cognizant we are the machine that makes everything in our lives run. We are the engine. The buck stops here.

And we have a pretty cute dog that figures into the picture.

Cars can run well for long periods of time, but occasionally require maintenance. Oil changes. Tire rotations. Tune-ups. As a couple, we are no different. When you’re literate and don’t have any problems firing off words, you have to proceed with caution. Don’t start pulling triggers until your guns are completely out of the holsters.

We have always talked directly. No filler. We liked that about each other from the time we met. Judy was the first person to really put her hands on her hips and say, “Who do you think you are?” There was a part of my flaming self that loved that quality from the start. Make no mistake. She was not a doormat.

Not everyone can handle no filler. Just sayin’.

In 2001, my youngest son from my first marriage came to visit us in Virginia Beach. On the second day of his visit, he took me aside. He was almost laughing.

“You know, I used to think you and Judy were mad at each other, but then I realized that’s just the way you talk. You guys are funny.”

Hey, a lot of times we were funny in our exchanges. Mostly.

Decades ago, I was good friends with a guy who was extremely religious and so was his wife at the time. They’d have horrendous arguments, but instead of yelling “fuck you” or “go to hell” at each other, they would exchange heated memorized Bible verses.

Rebuke that.

Judy and I haven’t gone that far. But with 2 hard-chargers, you get some sparks once in a while. No physical fisticuffs, but certainly mean and cruelly spiked words meant to bite. And when you’ve known someone as long as we have and had untold thousands of intimate conversations, you know exactly where those Achilles heels are.

You have the ammo. But you gotta be really careful with that shit. Because trust is fucking important. And part of the trust in a relationship involves not always saying what you could. In my case, it’s about reigning yourself in. Being right isn’t always enough.

Now, just because I recognize tempering myself needs to be an ongoing exercise doesn’t mean I adhere 100%. Arresting my asshole-ish tendencies is a difficult reign-in some days. I can still be the bull in the china shop if something pisses me off. And that can be anything from some crazy shit I’m watching on TV to dropping a clean fork out of the dishwasher onto the floor. Most days I coast along and laugh at everything, but every once in a while, that asshole guy shows up. Maybe it’s the day a hip is pinching and won’t let up. You know. Whatever. As Mary Kay used to say, “Excuses are lies that only you believe.”

I have trouble keeping my mouth shut, and over time, I’ve had to learn things like not talking during Judy’s shows. This is hard for me. I was born this way. Go back and look at all my report cards and you’ll always find the admonition “talks too much in class.” This is DNA shit I am not responsible for.

So I am well aware Judy puts up with a lot. Now by the same token, she will tell you as she has told me that I am her favorite person. Her best friend. Best everything including lover and partier. She will tell you how many important lessons she learned from me over the years. She trusts me with her life.

I owe her for all the light she has brought into my world. So this Santa book had to be right. If Judy hated it, I would jump off a bridge. I didn’t tell her that out loud. Restraint.

She didn’t pick up the book until 3 weeks after I set it out for her. Then one day, I hear her say, “I read the first 2 pages.”

Okay. So that meant she’d read the dedication and the forward.

Then more radio silence. For like a week or so.

She announced she’d read the first couple of chapters.

More turned-down radio.

I think the fear was – certainly on my part – what if the book sucks? What if after all this time and effort, the book doesn’t say what you wanted to say? Judy hadn’t read the 2nd draft, she just remembered the straw-man 1st draft with Swiss cheese holes peppered throughout.

Then within a couple of days, she read the book and told me she’d finished.

I think we waited a day to discuss. I asked her questions.

Was it a good journey for you?

“Yes.”

And most important, was it a love story?

Her Ann-Margret kitten voice came out. “Oh, yeah.”

We talked about parts of the book that she especially enjoyed. Things she found sad and others that made her laugh out loud. And God bless her, she discovered 3 things that needed to be adjusted. They were easy adjustments. Oh, and out of all 360 pages, she found an it’s that should have been an its. Man, I thought I’d checked that shit. Over and over.

That’s why she’s in my corner. That’s why she’s my cut man. She has patched me back together so many times it’s not funny. The patience of Job. She has always believed in me and I would say the same about her. We can trade a barb once in a while, but it falls off like Teflon if you make an effort to minimize the downtime. Apologies are always welcome.

There’s a great live YouTube of Jethro playing an abbreviated version of Thick as a Brick paired with Locomotive Breath – all put to bed in about 6 minutes. Sound quality is superb. I’ve watched that particular video numerous times and each time I hear the opening acoustic guitar and those words Really don’t mind if you sit this one out, I ask myself what was that like the first time those words spilled out of Ian Anderson’s mouth? Did he sit there and go “Whoa! Where did that come from?” Did he know how great that line was?

Hope he did. He done good on that phrasing I wish I’d written.

Maybe he felt the same way I did that late December night when I sat back and realized I’d finished the book. At least, finished it to the point where if something happened to me, the story made sense and was virtually complete.

Sometimes there’s a delay between creation and realization. You have to have time for import.

I’m working on 5 other pieces that are all in later stages of discovery. Some have been in progress for years. Don’t worry. I still can’t keep my typing mouth shut. If I were in school today, the admonishment would be “types too much.” Tons of stuff in all different directions and I am enjoying honeybeeing from piece to piece whenever I feel the inclination. Or not. I side-lined those efforts to finish Santa, but now Santa’s resting in the arms of Michael and a demographic of friends who are writers and people who read a lot. I’m just happy I still know people that read. At all.

Now, will they get through the Santa book? Maybe. It’s okay if they don’t. The person I wrote it for loved the book and that’s all that matters in the big scheme – that I got to leave this Valentine in my wake. And if something were to happen to me today, I have left behind what I wanted to say.

If you’re in, you’re in, but if not?

Really don’t mind if you sit this one out.

I sit a lot of stuff out myself.

There’s another line in Thick as a Brick.

“I may make you feel, but I can’t make you think.”

I’m thinking we can hit both those notes if I do this right. You know. Write makes right.

The book took a long time. There are always changes to be made. We’ll get there. In a way, it’s good that it took a while. Because during that decade where I went from my 60s to my 70s, if I hadn’t had the wisdom and insight gained during that tremendous time of growth, the book would have been totally different. Wouldn’t have ended the same.

There’s a scene in Tootsie where playwright Bill Murray explains how he feels about reactions to his work. He tells his roommate acting coach Dustin Hoffman that he hates it when people come up to him after his play and tell him how good it was.

Bill would rather have someone approach him 3 weeks later and say, “Hey, man, I saw your play. What the hell happened?”

Either reaction is okay with me. Believe me, I’ve experienced both. At least I’ll know you were paying attention.

During the last 2 years, I’ve been in and out of medical distress and Judy has worked tirelessly to support me despite my occasional brittleness and distances. I work every day at getting better and I always would like to be less of an asshole. Some days are better than others. But I am trying. At least thinkin’ about it.

Despite my discrepancies, I know after all these years, overall, we have done a lot of good. That karma has come back to us in spades. I can’t think of anything that feels better. We have people who contact us years later to thank us for something we did for them or some inspiration we provided that changed their lives. That’s cool shit.

When my dear sister Lisa visited some months ago with her husband Jeff and their son Adam, there was a moment when Lisa and Jeff cornered me in the yard to make sure I knew what a magical paradise we had created. A house steeped in love.

When my oldest son from my first marriage came to visit, he went home and sent us one of those holographic 3-D photos encased in glass. The photo was of Judy, me and Baby Sally in the yard. The inscription said: “Your marriage inspires me.”

Judy and I have a lot of serious talks. I don’t know if I was feeling my mortality or what, but not too long ago, I asked her a loaded question. A dangerous question even.

“Do you feel like you’ve wasted your life with me?”

No. Not at all. Without hesitation.

And that’s why I wrote the Santa book.

There are parts of our lives we would love to live over again.

You know, like that night in the driveway with my pants down.

Rebuke that.