Santa

When I was a child, my family believed in Santa. We got presents from Santa, we sat on Santa's lap, presents magically appeared Christmas Eve, but it was never a humongous deal. I don't remember my parents making a huge deal about Santa and whether he was real or not. When I was about 9 or 10 my friend informed me that he wasn't real. I didn't believe her. I don't even think I asked my mom about it. Maybe I had doubts, I seriously can't remember. Eventually of course, I figured it out, but it wasn't a big deal to me.

My cousin on the other hand, repeatedly asked his mom if Santa was real, and she was adamant that he was.      Even when my cousin was past 12 and told his mom he knew, she still insisted. I felt like that was going a little overboard.

Then we had a lady come and speak to us, and tell us how devastating it was for her to find out that her parents had lied to her about Santa. To the point of wondering if she could ever trust them, or believe anything they ever told her ever again. It shook her faith. Finding that out, shook me.

I didn't want my kids to react that way.  I wanted them to enjoy Christmas and the magic of the season, but at what expense?

So, when Shane and I got married we discussed it, and decided that we weren't going to lie to our kids. If they asked about Santa, we would tell them the truth no matter what.

With Harrison, I have to admit we hadn't really figured out how to do this with finesse. We were pretty blunt with him. We told him about the real St. Nicholas, and how now we leave presents under the tree just like he did.

Part of me felt like I had ruined his childhood. We also told him, repeatedly to not tell other kids that Santa was pretend, or to make fun of them. This worked most of the time.

With Hazel, we still didn't want to lie to her, but I felt like there had to be a better way to teach her about Santa without taking the magic away. So, again, we told her the story and history of St. Nicholas, and then we told her that Santa wasn't real, but it was fun to pretend. She seemed very content with this information, and went happily on her way pretending that Santa was real.

This bugged Harrison, to the point where he was constantly telling Hazel that Santa wasn't real. I finally took him aside, and told him, "Look, she knows that. We've told her. We've also told her it's fun to pretend that he IS real. If she wants to pretend, then LET her and QUIT bugging her about it!!"

One of the things I always felt was so magical about Christmas morning, was waking up and seeing the Christmas tree, that maybe before only had one or two presents, be completely transformed. (With seven kids in the family, there was always a lot of presents!)

And so, if you see our tree...beautifully decorated by our kids, it usually looks pretty bare until it is magically transformed Christmas morning. We don't even give our kids that many gifts, but going from nothing, to completely full... it still makes me smile.

There's usually one or two gifts from Santa, but the rest are from us. Our kids seem to like it, and I like to think we have found the happy medium of including a childhood icon, without sacrificing what Christmas is really about.