How did your Santa Claus get busted?I never really bought into the Santa Claus idea as a kid.Don’t get me wrong. My sense of wonder can be phenomenal. However, I grew up in a tropical country, and Santa Claus with all his reindeer and winter accoutrements—no matter how magical—simply did not sit well with me. Besides, the Filipino Christmas Noche Buena tradition had us feasting at midnight. Even if this big, bearded man decided to deliver after the feasting and the washing-up (i.e. in the wee hours of the morning), our post-war San Andres apartment had no chimney. How could Santa Claus even show up at our place? ¡Aver!My parents, however, had the ruse going for several years, and I must have dutifully played along. Every Christmas Eve, sans fireplace and mantel, we hung up long socks near our home-made tree. We checked them on Christmas morning. Not that I can ever recall the contents. The only thing I remember being in it led to Santa getting busted.I guess I was ten and my brother Marco was eleven. Corazon Aquino was the new Philippine president, and her signature could be seen on the crisp, brown 10-peso bills that had appeared in our Christmas socks. Marco, more interested in money than I, decided to use the strange new bill that was burning a hole in his hand. He went down to the corner store to purchase whatever 11-year olds thought they had to have on Christmas Day.But he came back puzzled--the storekeeper had refused to accept his money. They had never seen such a bill before.Papa then had to go and explain to the storekeeper that he worked for the Central Bank, and that those bills with the signature of the new president were, in fact, legal tender. He also had to confess that he had put those bills in our Christmas socks, as Santa Claus.