How did I get to the point where my toddler is matter-of-factly telling his friend that Santa is dead?
Accidentally.
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I am a teacher and a planner. When my first child was born within a week of Christmas, I decided that as a family, we would celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, and only give gifts at birthdays. The main reason was to keep things fair with our other children who would theoretically be born at other times of the year. I didn’t want my first born to be stuck with joint birthday-Christmas gifts.
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St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church celebrates St. Nicholas Sunday. Someone dresses up in red bishop’s gear, tells St. Nicholas stories, and hands out bags of gold-covered chocolate coins. When my son was little, I was the Christian Education Director at the church, and so I was in charge of St. Nicholas. One year, my friend Andy played St. Nick. Another year, my father did. My son must have listened closely to what his grandfather said about St. Nicholas. If Santa were alive over a thousand years ago, he must be dead by now, right?
And hence, Santa is dead. Which my son very matter-of-factly told several of his friends, making some of them burst into tears. And making me not very popular at pre-school.
I don’t remember how I got him to stop talking about dead Santa, but I do remember the surprise twist ending to this whole Santa story.
That Christmas eve, we were at a friend’s house for a party. They also had small children, and they were tracking Santa’s travels via NORAD. As my family drove home from the party, I asked my son if he understood what we were watching on the computer. He didn’t, so I quickly told him the story of Santa flying around the world to deliver presents to children and how we were watching Santa’s movements on the map.
My son asked if all children get presents. I responded that part of the Santa story is that only well-behaved children get presents, but that actually Santa should give presents to all children. My son quickly got excited and stated, “So I get presents from Santa tonight?!”
Whoops! How do we deal with that one? My husband and I looked at each other. We don’t exchange Christmas presents; we give gifts on our birthdays instead; therefore, we hadn’t been buying Santa presents either.
What do we say?! “Of course you get presents. You’re a kid aren’t you?”
So... we get home and put the boy to bed. It is now almost midnight on Christmas Eve, and I have just promised presents to my child that I don’t have. I run around the house, trying to find anything that is remotely age-appropriate AND hasn’t been seen by my son yet.
I start in the basement, where I have stashed all the gifts from well-intentioned relatives who have given age- INappropriate presents. I find only one gift there: a toy meant for eight year olds that was given to my son when he was two. After I scour the rest of the house, I wrap the sad pile of items, and go to sleep.
The next morning, my son pops out of bed and excitedly scampers down the stairs. There are three wrapped presents under the tree. He unwraps the first one. It is the tractor from the basement.
My son is clearly still not old enough for it, but he shrieks with delight and says, “A tractor! Just what I wanted!”
I’m relieved, but we’re not out of the woods yet. That tractor was the most gift-like of the three presents.
My son unwraps the second box. “Wow, marbles! Lookit, Mommy! I got marbles! (Squeal!) I like these marbles. I want to keep these forever! Those are so exciting! Look what I got, Daddy!”
Who knew a box of marbles could be so amazing?
And now for the third present. I am expecting this one to clearly be disappointing. But the excitement of Christmas overcomes even a gift that my child doesn’t recognize.
“Let’s see. Let’s open this.”
He opens the box and squeals again: “Wow! Wow! Wow!”
“Look, Daddy! Just what I wanted!”
...without ever naming the object, because he has no idea what it is.
And so, Christmas and Santa are redeemed with a wooden puzzle set (meant to sit on a desk in a cubicle). And I learned yet again that no matter how much I plan my parenting, being a mother is really all about improv.
