The Great Santa Experiment

We don’t “do” Santa. Yes, we are one of those families. We don’t care if anyone else participates in that tradition…we couldn’t care less. I will leave analysis of why this is a problem for OTHER people…that we don’t do Santa…for another post.

I grew up in a family that didn’t do Santa, and I have always felt like that was the right choice for all of my parents’ children. I’ve never been regretted that my parents were always forthcoming about the reality of Santa, and as far as I know, neither have my brother or sister. My sister has reared all 4 of her children Kris Kringle-less.

My husband did believe in Santa as a child, but his family did not make a big deal of it. We considered finding ways to include the tradition, but decided before having children not to rear them to believe in Santa. The more we’ve come to know Aidan, the more confident we are that we made the right decision. Aidan is very concrete and literal. Not only would he never buy that we hadn’t been lying to him to perpetuate the myth, it would have been miserable trying to come up with answers to his millions of questions. Even when he was littler and even though he has always known that his presents come from Mom and Dad, he STILL had questions about how others were able to swallow this improbable tale.

Emerson, however, is another story.

Once we started to get to know Emerson, we briefly reconsidered our decision. Emerson loves to pretend–something that used to make Aidan intensely uncomfortable. Having Emerson for a brother has really stretched Aidan in that way, and he now enjoys it, even if he doesn’t always understand how it works for others. Emerson is a fantasy lover and story teller.

Emerson wants to believe in Santa Claus.

We did decide to stick with our original decision. Emerson is still rather concrete and frankly, I just didn’t want to do it. I know that lots of people consider it very different from lying and it works fine for their families. But honesty has always been extremely important to me. And I would just feel dishonest to teach my children that there was a Santa Claus who came every year with goodies.

But we have always left open a different possibility. We have always agreed that we might someday decide to pretend WITH the children that Santa exists.

Now that Emerson is old enough to really get a read on his personality and both boys are old enough to be sure that Santa isn’t real, and now that Aidan is old enough to handle pretending an elaborate pretense without it sending him over the edge into mayhem…we are having The Great Santa Experiment.

I can’t get past the feeling that Emerson needs this, somehow. We are pretty hardcore around here. We don’t brook any nonsense. We cowboy up. We face facts. Not that we don’t play and have lots of fun together, but we are fairly reality-based. And Emerson…well, he really wants someone to have a really good pretend with him. It is not his fault he was born into a family that doesn’t do much pretending.

So Patrick and I talked it over and we decided to try, this year, pretending together that we all believe in Santa Claus. From today…Thanksgiving…until Christmas, we are all in agreement to pretend with Emerson. We are even going to do “Elf on the Shelf”…though not the $30 version you buy at Barnes & Noble. For those not familiar with this old tradition that has found new life due to an enterprising author, Santa is said to send out elves to live at children’s houses during the holiday season. The elf sits on a shelf and watches the behavior of the children. Each night he flies back to the North Pole and gives SC the daily report. When the children awake, they have to find where the elf has landed upon returning from his nightly northern visit. Here is the fun part (the previous was the slightly sick part! I can’t imagine telling my children for real that we had a little spy in the house. I know it works for some people, but I could not do that). Every morning the children find the elf in a fun scene or in the midst of some elfish (elvish? no…I think that would only be for Lord of the Rings elves) adventures. This is the part that sounds really fun to Patrick and me. We already enjoy that kind of activity with our family friend, Mr. Peabottom.

Mr. Peabottom enjoys a cup of coffe with the sports page.

So our elf arrived this afternoon. Upon returning from our Thanksgiving meal at the D FAC (dining facility…the Army has a tradition of it’s leaders serving the troops on this day), the boys spotted Aidan’s small parachute hanging from the roof of the front porch. Our elf had HALO (high altitude, low opening) jumped and arrived by air. The boys were excited and intrigued. We have agreed to name our elf Sir Elferd Peppermint.

I am very interested to discover how this all works out. Already we have noticed that Emerson is struggling with the idea that to play by Santa’s rules, he only gets presents if he is good. This is fraught with pitfalls. For instance, how good is good? And does that include how you treat the cats? Emerson knows that he isn’t always perfectly good, so he has expressed some anxiety that he will be able to perform to Santa’s standards.

Interesting, isn’t it? With Mommy and Daddy, there is grace. Our boys know that they will get presents from us as an expression of love, regardless of their behavior. Since they don’t have a history of getting presents from an inconsistent Santa who tells them that they won’t get gifts without a good record, but brings the presents regardless of the reality of goodness, Emerson truly thinks that playing by the Santa rules means that he is in genuine danger of not measuring up.

We didn’t plan to highlight the difference between how the world does things and how God does, but there it is.

I hope to continue to report how our endeavor is progressing over the course of the month, or at least a post-mortum following the holidays. Look for pictures of Sir Elferd as well.

~ by zhappyhomemaker on November 27, 2008.