Nathan and I have started discussing Santa, as in do we want this year to be the year we go all out and initiate the Santa myth? I’m pretty tapped out as far as effective disciplinary tactics and have wondered if Santa threats would work with my kid. Somehow I’ve come to accept the daily stress of dealing with a toddler and have been told by those with more experience that it only gets worse. Other parents just love telling you that.
But with this Santa thing we can start spreading the seeds of doubt. Does he really see you when you’re sleeping? Does he know when you’re awake? Hell yeah he knows when you’ve been bad or good because mama has his number logged into her cell phone so she can call him when you’re throwing a hellish tantrum at the grocery store.
Still, Autumn is just barely three and I think it will be another year before she really starts to believe. That’s why this year is important. This year we’ll bake cookies and put them on a plate by the fireplace downstairs (where Molly can’t get them, of course). We’ll leave a glass of milk which Nathan will consume along with the cookies before we go to bed on Christmas Eve. In the morning the girl will most likely wake us up and we’ll all go downstairs to see if Santa has visited. Of course he’ll leave a couple of specially marked packages for her. And next year she’ll remember all of this and eagerly sit on Santa’s lap with her laundry list of desired toys at the ready. Mommy will be nearby, content with the knowledge that she now can employ Santa Blackmail as so many parents have done before her.
My brother and I were never taught to believe in Santa, which when you think of it was pretty strange considering how much we fought with one another. Our disbelief had nothing to do with some altruistic desire of my parents to not perpetuate an illusion that would eventually crush their children when they learned the truth. It was because my father did not want some mythic fat guy taking credit for the gifts his hard-earned money had purchased. Give credit where credit was due, he thought.
I remember one year when I wanted so much to believe. I was older, maybe ten or eleven, and wanted to do the cookies for Santa and the carrots for the reindeer. I wanted to hear sleigh bells over the rooftop and the thump of hooves on the shingles. I wanted to find something unexpected under the tree because I was a horrible snoop and discovered just about everything I was getting before I opened my gifts on Christmas Day. Most of all I wanted to feel the magic. I wanted to live in a world where Santa really did exist, even if he really didn’t.
I decided a long time ago that any child of mine was going to believe in Santa. This was before I fully comprehended the potential of Santa Blackmail. Using the Santa myth to get my child to behave was the last thing on my mind. All I was thinking about was the magic, the kind of magic that makes a round-the-world trip possible in the twelve hours between bedtime and morning. Every child deserves the chance to believe it’s possible, no matter who winds up putting those presents under the tree.
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Great post!!
I went through the same thing this summer with my daughter and the tooth fairy. She’s old enough and smart enough to have figured out the truth, but she seemed credulous enough when she came home from camp, after having written to me about losing a tooth there, and found money under her pillow. Good acting? The last vestiges of belief? I don’t know, but I know for sure that she knows the truth now, because her brother told me he filled her in.
I’m not sure about this one myself. Growing up I don’t know when we figured out Santa wasn’t real but we all joined in the perpetrating of the myth until we were in our teens. We knew there was no Santa but we knew our ‘big’ gift would have his name on the tag. I think we left cookies and milk as late at 11 or 12.
You know, just rearrange the letters of S-A-N-T-A and you have S-A-T-A-N.
I don’t know what that means. But still.
Kathi-I’ve heard that one before, on SNL, I think. Dana Carvey as The Church Lady. A real classic.
And my post tomorrow is all about spiders, yours included.
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