In a photo album sometime not too long ago, I came upon a dreadful photo of myself as a young boy. There I am, sitting on the lap of a Santa Claus, the last step in a ritual that would repeat year after year, beginning each fall as it did with a new session of school, a family portrait in September, and a series of birthdays in October and November. But unlike in the many pictures for which children happily pose with Santa Claus each December, in this picture my face—reddened with emotion—suggests an awful fear, my hands jut out toward the camera, and the bearded man holds me in a futile attempt at a warm embrace, complete with tender eyes that I want absolutely nothing to do with. Susan Meisela’s photo from her series documenting the homeless men participating in the organization The Volunteers of America reminded me of this picture.

There is no way for me to know whether or not the Santa Claus in my photo belonged to The Volunteers of America, but the department store background suggests that he did not. Yet the Santa Claus in my photo participates in the widespread and highly-regarded Christmas tradition that some children will experience this very year. These holiday imitators, within the confines of New York City at least, begin to multiply slowly. Around December, one would appear at the entrance to the subway station, then a few would line up along Fifth Avenue a couple of streets apart, and, inevitably, more than a few others would take stage at each holiday party, all of them ready for more pictures. Some would carry a bell, some would collect change for charities like The Salvation Army, and others would ask what I wanted for Christmas and whether I had been a good boy this year. Little did I know as a child that some of these men were homeless, having scant or no family at all of their own, but had all the same discovered a way to become a part of the Holiday Season by posing as a jolly elderly man with a billowy white beard in a splendid red suit.

I liked this season with its bells on the streets, the jingling sound of coins, the bustle of shoppers, and the promise of presents on Christmas morning. I even liked the Santa Clauses from this perspective, delighting in the differences between each one—a longer beard here, a different shade of red there, or a more dramatic suit altogether, embroidered with floss, bright sequins, and embellished with luminous white gloves. Every one of them and I too had a role to play in this annual spectacle.