I am a desperate mother. Some would think it ridiculous the lengths I have gone to so that my children's fantasies remained untarnished. Even I have questioned why a belief in Santa Claus is so terribly important to me. I haven't answered that question for myself with complete satisfaction, perhaps I never will. It's just that to me, having that belief in Santa and all the magic and wonderment that goes with it somehow makes up for the disappointing things in life. It is a small oasis of complete joy and awe that an ordinary life just needs.
As a child, I was so anxious to grow up that I continually questioned everyone I came into contact with on the validity of Santa. I would pretend to certain non family adults that I had been told that there was no Santa hoping that they would slip up and confirm my worst fear. They didn't. But I was relentless. I kept asking and asking. I wonder what it was in me that wanted to burst my own bubble. Finally in exasperation my mother broke down and told me the truth. I was devastated and heartbroken. I don't think I have ever fully forgiven myself for asking or my mother for telling me.
In light of the above it's no wonder that I have gone to great lengths to preserve the belief in Santa with my children. When my first three children were little I began the practice of wrapping everything that Santa brought. I made sure that the wrapping paper used for these gifts was completely different than the gifts that "I" bought and wrapped that were under our tree. I went to great trouble making sure that "Santa's" wrapping paper was not seen before OR after Christmas. When I think back on how secretive I was with that wrapping paper even I have to shake my head!! Somewhere along the line of creating Santa for my kids I began to believe in him again. To this day whenever I look at pictures of my children around that time I can get tears in my eyes when I see the look of sheer wonder, excitement and expectation on their little faces. When my Emily was around 6 years old she began in earnest to get the real scoop on Santa. Like me, she was always anxious to grow up. She didn't just ask me if Santa was real during the Christmas season, she asked me year round. She'd try to catch me off guard and ask in a very grown up way for me to tell her the truth. She was convinced there was no Santa and she wasn't going to rest until I admitted it. I remember the day she wore me down like it was yesterday. I can see the look on her face and I can remember exactly where we stood in my bedroom. She's pulled me into my bedroom and took me to the far side of the room. And she asked me for what was probably the 500th time. "Mommy, tell me the truth, is there really a Santa Claus?" I do not know what possessed me, and I've regretted it ever since but in total exasperation I said in what I remember to be an irritated tone of voice, "No, Emily, there is no Santa Claus! Are you happy now?" The instant it was out of my mouth I regretted. it. I felt like I had stolen all the magic in her world. She, however, seem nonplussed and took it with a grain of salt. Patrick never did ask me. Sarah asked me many times. I never ever told her there was no Santa.
As I've said before, when I discovered I was pregnant at the ripe old age of 40 I was less than thrilled, to put it mildly. But one day I realized that I would have this fresh little believer again!! It was one of the first things about being pregnant that I was able to find any joy in. So, is it any wonder that I protect the idea of Santa Claus so ferociously?
As for the Easter Bunny, eh, I don't think I ever totally bought into that idea. I mean Santa is a man, a living human being! But a bunny, traveling the world delivering baskets of Candy? Come on, it's just too far fetched even for a sucker like me! So last week when it was time to do the shopping for stuff for Easter baskets I found myself in a delemma. I had the requisite candy bought several weeks in advance (and for the first time in the history of my buying Easter candy, I DIDN'T eat a single piece of it before Easter!). I went to ToysRUs last Saturday to buy a few little toys to go in Austin's basket. One of the toys I got for him was a Super Soaker squirt gun, massive thing!! My nephew and his wife had a new baby last Friday and I wanted to get a Super Soaker for their older son so that he and Austin would have something fun to play with at the family Easter celebration. As I was buying the two guns it occurred to me that this might raise some kind of doubt in Austin's mind. How would he process the information that Taylor was getting the exact same Super Soaker that he was getting. The kid is not a dummy! He would never believe it a coincidence that I just happened to buy Taylor this gun and then he would get the exact same thing in his Easter basket. He has been asking me about Santa for two years now. I am adamant that there is a Santa Claus. I will remain adamant that there is a Santa Claus until the day they put me in a box! Santa IS real, damn it. I won't lose him again!!!! Soooo, I made up my mind that IF Austin asked me for the truth about the Easter Bunny (and by this point I was praying that he would!) I was going to come clean. My reasoning being that if I admitted that there was no Easter Bunny it would give more validity to my insistence that there was indeed a Santa Claus!
As we were setting out his Easter basket last Saturday night Austin asked the million dollar question. "Mommy, is the Easter Bunny real?" I replied, "Well, Austin, what do you think?" He thought for a minute and he said that it seemed like it would be kind of hard for a rabbit to go all the way around the world with so much candy and "stuff". Perfect! I said, "Yeah, I think it would be kind of hard to imagine that too. He then asked me if I was the one that bought the stuff for his Easter basket. I admitted that it was, to which he replied, "Why in the world do you waste so much money on all that candy and stuff?" I told him I did it because I know it makes him happy and that it's fun for me to do. Just like that, I'd sold out the Easter Bunny! Not surprisingly, the next thing out of his mouth was, "Well, are you the one that buys my presents at Christmas too?" "Absolutely not", I insisted, "Santa Claus is real".
The world can be a harsh and cold place sometimes. I do believe in Santa Claus and I always will. Austin will never hear any differently from me. As the editor of The Sun once wrote to Virginia:
You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real andabiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
And I would add....Mommies too!
3 comments:
Wonderful and heart warming entry!.... Which raises the question...if a tree falls in the forest and no one sees it fall...did a tree really fall?
....As long as there is a witness.....in the case of that tree....some time after falling, it was hauled off by a lumber jack...the tree was eventually used in making a guitar....the remainder of the tree used in making a desk......both items being used purposefully, lighting other lives, providing the pavement for conscience to walk on.....That tree that fell in forest .....was seen....
If Santa has a witness, it exists......not in the way we know it...but in a whole other realm.....a realm that only childrens imagination can understand.
As long as there are children...there will be a Santa! Marc :)
Oh, we must have been separated at birth! I did the same thing with the Santa paper for my kids when they were little. Also, when the girls were little, we still lived in Chicago, right in the city, and we had a little sunporch from which, if you craned your neck, you could see Lake Michigan. On Christmas Eve, when it got dark, I'd take them onto the sunporch and tell them to look for a red light in the sky...you could see red lights from small plans in holding patterns waiting to land at Meigs Field, but you couldn't see the planes...as soon as we spotted one, I'd say, "That's Rudolph's nose! Look!" The girls believed...
When Chris and Mike were 7, they still believed, but most of their little buddies did not. Mike was a fervent believer, but Chris was beginning to doubt...and a month before Christmas, he announced that he'd figured out a "test" to see whether Santa was real or not, and it was this: he knew what he wanted from Santa for Christmas, but he'd decided not to tell anyone, reasoning that if Santa was real, he'd know what Chris wanted, and deliver, and if he wasn't real...well, come Christmas morning, Chris would know that.
Aaaarrrggghhhh! Alex and Katharine (who were then 17 and 14) and I grilled Mike relentlessly, every chance we got: "What is Chris asking Santa for?" But Chris held to his word, and didn't tell Mike, which was pretty amazing, considering they could (and still can) finish each other's sentences.
Christmas approached and still I didn't know what Chris wanted, and he refused to write Santa or to go to North Park Mall, where the "real" Santa always came (a 6'3", bearded, bespectaled PhD/child psychologist who'd done his dissertation on the importance of fantasy in children's lives - I always took the boys to him, because I think he IS the real Santa!). Anyway, Chris refused to go see him that year, so I had no way of knowing what he wanted.
But then, it occurred to me...although we had two cats, my guess was that he'd ask Santa for a pet of some sort. I just had a feeling about it. So, on the morning of Christmas Eve, I went to a pet store and bought a hamster and an elaborate hamster cage for Chris. The cage was one of those things with a zillion tubes, that had to be assembled, and I planned to do that late that night. In the meantime, the store sent me home with the hamster in a cardboard box. The girls were in on the secret, so I put the hamster, in his little box, in Katharine's room, in her closet.
At about 6:30 PM that evening, I heard loud screams coming from Katharine's room. I rushed up the stairs, and the boys did too...when they burst into her room, she got a look of surprise on her face, and immediately did a great fake at having stubbed her toe...I shooed the boys out of her room, and she told me that she'd come upstairs only to discover the hamster had escaped, and she couldn't find him. Furthermore, both cats were upstairs, looking strangely docile and satisfied. I almost wept...then, one of the cats pounced...and we found the little bugger hamster under a corner of carpet in Kath's closet. Breathing a sigh of relief and a prayer of thanks, I put him in a plastic container, and late that night, with the girls' help, assembled the cage and put Mr. Hamster inside.
I'll never forget the look on Chris' face on Christmas morning. "Oh, Santa IS real!" he exclaimed, on seeing the hamster. He was so excited and happy. "Mom, I actually wanted another kitten," he explained, "But I guess Santa didn't think that would work too well, with our cats...so he brought me the hamster instead...this is COOL, look at this cage...oh, thank you, Santa, thank you!..."
Yes, Virginia...
Post a Comment