Daddy was stationed in Greece, at the American Embassy, when Cindy and I were born. Mom and dad had a Greek housekeeper who cleaned, cooked, shopped and taught Cindy Greek. Cindy was very international. Christmas rolled around so mom and dad took Cindy to see Santa Claus. There was a nice long wait, but Cindy saw all the other kids go up to the big, jolly man. She saw them sit on his lap. She saw that they had pictures taken. She saw the other children laughing. She saw them get off Santa's lap and walk away with their family with a big smile on their face and a candy cane in their hand.
Cindy, mom and dad waited and waited. Finally it is Cindy's turn to sit on Santa's lap. Mom picked Cindy up, placed her on Santa's lap and turned to step back. Wait, screaming child - what did she call Santa? "Ba-boo, ba-boo", she screamed. All the other children staring, probably wondering why that little girl was screaming at the nice man. Cindy's use of the Greek language was surprising. No, come to think of it, she spoke Greek first. Mom and dad had to coax English out of her. Hmm.
Cindy called Santa a "Boogie man". She would not sit on his lap. She did not want her picture taken. Come to think of it, the only picture I remember seeing to mark the event was one of Cindy crying, being handed to mom. Oh well, maybe next year.
(A little disclaimer here - I have no clue how to spell "ba-boo" in Greek, nor could I make any sense of it when I tried to use an online translator. Mom told us this story a long time ago and she told us what Cindy screamed and what it meant.)
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