Songwriting Diary: I Saw Santa Sliding On A Cafeteria Tray

An ongoing series about the events and stories that inspired my songs

My friend leaned in like he had something important to say, which I highly doubted.

Behind him, a gold ‘Merry Christmas’ banner was falling down around a string of blue lights twinkling in the window of his dimly lit kitchen. I noticed two of the bulbs were burnt out. Superchunk’s ‘Child’s Christmas in Wales’ played in the background and I thought the cover song was a pretty good soundtrack for the start of sipping season. And at this point in the December calendar, we were more than ready to embrace the season of sipping.

“It’s true you know,” my pal said as he raised his glass up to his face, one eye squinted. He put the glass down without losing eye contact and poured another drink from the tall bottle on the table. I watched a large ice cube float to the top of the rim swimming in the dark alcohol. He raised his glass to his lips and took a sip.

“What’s true?” I asked.

“I’ve thought long and hard about it,” he said. “Dark rum is good food.”

As the endearing philosophical statement left his mouth, he took another sip from his tumbler and raised it up to cheers me.

“Well I’ll sip to that,” I said, as our glasses clinked and I took another bite of the dark rum.

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Though I wasn’t much of a rum fan, it was all around me when I was a kid. My Dad drank it, my Grandfather drank it. And the golden booze was ever-present during the holidays, usually paired with a splash of Coke.

When I was a kid, my Dad’s favourite Christmas gift was a package that arrived from Newfoundland in the mail each holiday season. My Mom’s cousins would send us gifts which comprised of knitted mittens and socks for my sister and me, chocolates for my Mom and little bottles of Screech, much to the joy of my rum-loving father. The package usually arrived a few days before Christmas, but Dad would start checking the mail in early December.

“Did we get anything from Newfoundland today?” was the first thing he’d say as he stepped in the door after a long day at work. It was the only time of year he’d arrive home with a sing-song voice of anticipation.

When the generous and glorious gift finally arrived from the east coast, my sister and I wondered why our Dad got to open a present well before Christmas Day, as we watched him tear through the packaging and open one of the little bottles to pour himself a stiff drink.

“Not fair,” we would quietly protest.

****************

The holiday season was closing in and students were packing bags and slowly disappearing from the university dorm, one by one. The halls became ghostly, haunted almost. I noticed my friend Tim wandering the halls with a large ‘40 pounder’ of dark rum in his hand. He floated down the hall in my direction like the Ghost of Christmas Present.

“Join me?” he said, holding up the large bottle, his voice echoing in the empty hall. Tim had a perma-grin on his face, but this night his smile was extra large. His blonde hair was a mess and he looked like he just rolled out of bed from a long winter’s student nap.

“When are you going home?” I asked, knowing his family was back in Winnipeg.

“Soon,” he said and shrugged. “Guess I’m one of the last to go. Have a drink with me?”

I followed him down the darkened hall, our feet echoed off the paper thin carpet and onto the cement walls in the hallway. These corridors were usually bustling with activity at all hours of the day and night with students racing to class, yelling to each other or throwing caps at beer bottles. The sound of our echoing feet in the quiet building was palpable.

There was a courtyard down below in the middle of the building that you could see from the hallway. A few Christmas lights twinkled from the windows facing inward around the building, casting their dim colours to the darkness below. They were leftover decorations from departed students, and now they sat-in as trimmings for the lonely. I looked through the windows to the hallway on the other side of the building. Not a soul in sight.

So odd, I thought to myself.

“Not many of us left, eh?” I yelled to my pal walking in hurried pace in front of me.

“It’s eerily quiet,” Tim called back. “Creepy almost. Sara’s still here though. Her door was open and I just saw her looking out her window.”

I followed Tim as he rounded the corner and took a few more steps to the only open door along the long corridor.

“Hey Sara, wanna drink?” he said as I watched him raise his bottle in the doorway. I caught up to him and looked in at Sara, standing by the window in her dimly lit dorm room. She looked back at us with her large wild eyes.

“Let’s go sliding you guys!” Sara exclaimed. “Look,” she motioned to the window. Tim and I wandered into her room as she pointed to the freshly fallen snow that was lit up by the parking lot lights four stories below. There was a small hill beside the parking lot that separated our building from the university cafeteria.

“Sliding on what?” I giggled, loving Sara’s ever-present enthusiasm for the ridiculous. Her wacky ideas for adventure always impressed and I was usually curious to know what our residence pal would do next.

I looked down at the blanket of snow below. I’d walked through that parking lot several times a day, making my way to class. Or racing to catch the shuttle bus for the downtown campus. Or sprinting over to the cafeteria to find some warm food.

My girlfriend’s parents had bought her a student meal plan that semester so she let me follow her to the cafeteria on a regular basis to share in her good fortune. We would walk back and forth through the winter air across the parking lot to load up on free food when the mood struck. University life ran on a different clock. This wasn’t the ‘breakfast, lunch and supper’ schedule that Mom dictated. University meals ran on a random clock prescribed by the irrational schedule attached to studying, sleeping and the odd time your stomach reminded you that you should probably eat now and again. For some reason, my girlfriend never seemed to mind her mooching boyfriend tagging along for almost every meal. Maybe she did, but she didn’t let on. Or maybe I just didn’t want to know. Either way, we had a well-worn path up that little hill.

The little hill that Sara was now sizing up from her dorm room, four stories above.

“Yeah, sliding on what?” Tim added, looking around Sara’s messy room, presumably for a glass to pour his rum. There were dirty dishes piled on one corner of her desk beside a half empty bottle of cheap tequila which I suspected was freshly opened.

“Well, I’ve got this!” Sara blurted out as she reached behind her desk and held up a large plastic food tray. “I stole it from the cafeteria. C’mon let’s go!”

Tim and I looked at each other. Then in unison, we both looked at the large bottle in his hand.

“Oh you guys!” Sara laughed.

With that, she grabbed a Dollar Store Santa hat from the top of a large pile of dirty laundry on the edge of her bed and stuck it on her head. I could smell the booze floating around her enthusiasm.

“Byyyyeeeeee,” she taunted with that devilish smirk of hers, and walked toward the door.

“We’ll watch from up here,” Tim called after her, as the half drunken Santa waved the cafeteria tray and raced off down the residence hall, headed for the hill below.

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“I Saw Santa Sliding On A Cafeteria Tray” lyrics

I saw Santa sliding on a cafeteria tray

Now I know that’s how she probably got away.

Woke up staring at the ceiling and I hope you’ll understand

That I realize that I only loved you for your student meal plan.

Dark rum is good food

For Christmas dinner.

As a bonus for paid subscribers, there’s an exclusive video of me strumming this song on acoustic guitar.

There’s also an epilogue about me and Tim and that large bottle of rum.