Conversation during carpool last week:
My 6-year-old daughter: I can’t wait to tell Santa what I want for Christmas at the mall.
My daughter’s five-year-old friend: That’s not Santa.
Daughter: I know. The real Santa lives at the North Pole.
Daughter’s friend: There is no Santa. He’s not real.
Daughter: Yes, he is. He is real!
Daughter’s friend: No he isn’t! There’s no such thing as Santa.
Me: DEER!! DEER!! Did you see that deer running on the side of the highway? Who can help me find the deer?
That was a close one.
Christmas crisis averted… for now.
Uh-huh, I am THAT mom.
The mom, who wants her child to believe in Santa, for as long as humanly possible.
Whereas I would love to place my innocent little lamb in a bubble until she’s 30, I’m not sure CPS would look kindly on that type of “parenting,” so I expose her to all sorts of little rugrats, who want to spoil her Santa dream.
Now that she is in school, it’s getting tougher to keep the dream alive.
Is it so bad that I want her to make it to at least her 8th or 9th birthday before she figures out that the noise she heard on Christmas Eve night was not really Rudolph regaining his balance on our slanted rooftop?
I don’t remember the exact age I found out that Santa Claus’ real name was mom and dad, but I had older siblings, who were determined to ruin the facade, so I didn’t stay a believer much beyond second grade.
You can’t hermetically seal your kid off from the real world, so what can you do to keep St. Nick’s spirit alive? Here are a few tips:
Find good hiding places: My older brothers convinced me that Santa wasn’t real by revealing my mom’s secret hiding spot for Christmas gifts. They then proceeded to teach me how to open, examine, and then re-wrap the gifts before she got out of the shower. If you want your kids to believe in Santa Claus for as long as possible, you need to stash your loot in a very good hiding place.
Purchase special wrapping paper: If you use the same wrapping paper on Aunt Helen’s gift from the family, as you do on presents from Santa, your kids will get suspicious. Consider buying a special set of wrapping paper to use exclusively on Santa gifts.
Fancy fonts: Forget about disguising your handwriting on gift tags. I used to print with my left hand or use cursive for Santa’s signature, but now I simply use a variety of fancy fonts for the tags. After all, my daughter knows that Santa has a computer and his elves print out gift tags for all the good little boys and girls of the world.
Throw in a zinger: Have Santa gift your kid with a toy that you would never purchase. Allowing your child to have something that wasn’t on his wish list (but you know he’d enjoy) will throw even the most skeptical kid for a loop.
What do you do to keep your kids believing in Santa Claus?
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