A Santa Experiment Update

So far we are having a lot of fun with pretending Santa, and mostly, with Sir Elferd Peppermint.

Our elf is a bit mischievous, and the children have loved finding him in some silly activity each morning. They talk about him as though he is real, which is fascinating to me. Even Aidan has delighted in joining in the fiction, though I know that he is not drawn in to partly believing it. Emerson does seem to believe it just a little. I won’t lie…that concerns me a bit. I don’t want to be a part of him genuinely believing something that isn’t true. On the other hand, I think this endeavor could possible help in that regard. I think he believed a bit before we started. In doing this experiment, I anticipate that, if we feel like he needs a dose of reality (and maybe we will NOT think that, when all the dust has settled), we will be able to show him someday that it WAS us.

Generally, though, our compulsion to make sure our children aren’t believing things that aren’t true does not extend to things that they will figure out for themselves at some point. So if Emerson wants to believe that the elf flies to the North Pole every night and then spends some time before we get up cutting out paper snowflakes, so be it. Besides, the fact that he makes up bits to add to the fantasy makes me think that he has at least some handle on the fact that this is fantasy.

Patrick and I have had great fun finding a cute set-up for Sir Elferd every night. Only once have we forgotten. I realized it as I was falling asleep and woke myself up as Patrick was getting ready for PT the next morning and asking him to set Elferd up. One night Patrick put him on an ottoman with some Uno cards in his hand, and some scattered around him. It was cuter then it had any right to be. He’s been found digging in a candy stash and playing army men on the floor.

Friday morning Emerson discovered Elferd in the refrigerator with a box of reindeer cookie dough. I told them that the elf knew how great their behavior had been the night before when Mommy and Daddy went to the ball and Miss Kelly (our neighbor and friend) stayed with them. Later that day, Emerson told me something good he’d done, and said, “I want that elf to bring me another surprise for being good!” Uh…YEAH, Dude. Still, comments like that really do make me uncomfortable. It’s not that I don’t think that it’s okay for children to have external motivation while learning to internalize the rules. I just don’t want his focus to be in the wrong place.

But later he offered to help me with something, and when I thanked him, I asked him if he was doing it for the elf to see. He said, “Naw. I just want to help you, Mommy.” Aww, okay, then.

We haven’t had much discussion of Santa, but I imagine that will come more now that we are going to have the house decorated (we’re doing that tonight) and as we get closer to Christmas. I did have the boys write letters to Santa and stamp and put them out in the mail. I couldn’t believe that Aidan whole-heartedly participated without any hint of having to make sure we all, especially him, knew for sure that it was just for fun and not real. Perhaps he really does think that the mail carrier took his letter? He asked his dad later if the letters were still there, and seemed totally satisfied with Patrick telling him, no, they were gone. (Gone to on top of the refrigerator!) Normally he would want to discuss exactly where the post man would take it, where would it go, would they be confused because there was no real address, on and on.

So now some pictures of Sir Elferd’s shenanigans.

Fongie is intrigued by a joy-riding elf.

Sir Peppermint roasts a few marshmallows over the fire. Open flame is NOT authorized!

Dancing with a friend.

An unauthroized international call to the North Pole.

~ by zhappyhomemaker on December 7, 2008.