All parents dread the question..."Is Santa real?" How do we answer that? What do we say to keep our children young at heart without sounding jaded or cruel? How do we keep ourselves young at heart?
As parents we have such a short window of time that I like to call the Magic Years at Christmas. Those precious years between children being absolutely terrified of Santa, and when they start suspiciously checking out the name tags and trying to compare Santa's handwriting to your own. Those wonderful years that they just love to believe.
I found this picture of me and Santa in 1971, when I wasn't quite two years old. Obviously the Magic Years hadn't started yet. I have a feeling Santa probably had a wet lap and smelled like toddler pee shortly after this photo was taken.
"Perfect!" I'd tell the nervous photographer, as she hesitantly clicked away on her camera. "Make sure you get her picture with her mouth open, terrified like that..." I'm sure my kids will thank me for those funny pictures years from now.
I can remember when my oldest daughter Frankie was about 3 years old, and she was just slowly transitioning from the scared-of-Santa to the absolutely-love-Santa phase. We were tucking her in bed on Christmas Eve and made the mistake of saying something along the lines of, "... and if you feel a kiss on your forehead when you're sleeping or hear a noise later tonight, don't worry. It's just Santa."
She looked at us, completely petrified.
"I don't want Santa in my room kissing my face or being in my house! I wanna sleep with you guys!!!"
When it came to the rest of our kids, we made sure to make Santa sound a little more wonderful and a little less creepy, cat-burglar like.
I love those years of being awake on Christmas morning and lying in bed, hearing the kids wake up and exclaim, "Oh my gosh, Santa came!" I would just lie there and smile.
One year the kids were still a little afraid of actually seeing Santa, so they did the army crawl down the hallway into our room and then breathlessly piled into bed. "Um, we were too scared to look into the living room in case he was still there, but yeah... can you go check to see if Santa came?"
Christmas is one of the absolute best times in the world to be a parent. It's like the universe's way of equalizing out the fact we have to deal with teenage angst, potty training and temper tantrums. It makes up for the times we have to wash markers off the walls, unclog the toilet because someone shoved toys down there, and catch their barf in your hands. Watching their faces and hearing their voices on Christmas makes all of the other stuff just disappear. At least for that morning.
Last year my youngest child was in the back seat as we were driving, and he was listing off all the toys he was going to ask Santa for that Christmas. I started to get a little nervous (having been out of work for over half the year) and tried to get him to scale down his list.
"Don't worry, Mom," Wyatt assured me. "Santa doesn't have a budget, so you don't even have to worry about it!"
Ahhhh.... I would really love to have Santa's financial peace of mind during Christmas. It would make things so much easier, don't you think?
This year my children's ages run from 7 to 14. The youngest two, 7 and 9, vacillate between questioning me about Santa's existence and assuring me they still believe. I know they're hedging their bets.
I don't blame them.
When they asked me about it the other night, "Mom, is Santa real?" I took a deep breath and told them the truth.
"I'll tell you what, kiddos. As your Mom, I just love believing in Santa. It makes Christmas so much more fun and wonderful, don't you think?"
They nodded furiously in agreement, and I smiled.
Dear Universe...Just give me another year or two of these Magic Years. That's all I ask. And that would be the best Christmas present ever.
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