Santa... and your kids...

Seems to me that only in the last few decades have kids really begun to believe that their special.

 

Come on!

 

If there is no Santa, how can there be a SECRET SANTA?!!! Waaaaahhhh!

 

Three kids in the house, 17, almost 7, and 3. A few years ago we asked the 17 year old when she quit believing in Santa because we never had the conversation with her and she never brought it up.

She would not cop to not believing in Santa which we thought was pretty awesome.

I vividly remember wrecking Christmas for 2 of my cousins by telling them Santa was fake.

 

Wow. Merry Christmas to you, too, SFIND.

As for your idea, it is possible to do both -- give/receive gifts, and volunteer, you know. Many do around Christmastime.

 

So you don't have kids?

 

My kid just turned two...I plan on having "the talk" the day after Turkey Day.

 

I hope you're joking. I have friends who basically did the same thing you're talking about. They said, "We're not comfortable lying to our kids." which is fucking bullshit, especially when they're really young.

I have college friends who have kids who are 14, 12 and 4. They've made no attempt to have the younger kid believe in Santa, which I just think sucks.

 

My wife's family has the tradition of having Santa sneak into the house fairly early on Christmas Eve and then loudly exit, yelling "Ho! Ho! Ho!" and ringing sleigh bells. Everyone then rushes into the front room to see what he's left behind. And the kiddos would check to make sure that Santa had eaten some of the cookies and sipped from the cup of milk and that the reindeer had munched a few of the carrot put out for them. They owned and operated a dairy and had to take in milk and make deliveries Christmas morning.

When we married, we continued the tradition for our children.

Our youngest is 13 and, even though there’s no gullible audience remaining, he recently asked if he could help with “Santa” this year.

So, there’s a pretty good chance that he and I might do the show for my wife and 23-year-old daughter.

 

Last year, we left early for church and my sister-in-law and her husband came to our house and put all of the gifts out, and a few hours later, my wife and I went to their house and did the same.

The kids went nuts for it.

 

Of course I was kidding...he's only two! Give me some credit....


I'll wait til next year, of course.

 

Funny thing about this sort of stuff. For awhile there, if you don't watch out you'll catch yourself looking forward to the day when you don't have to do the stay-up-late-and-set-all-the-stuff-out bit. Then there comes a time when you notice that that day is approaching at light speed ... and in a nanosecond you start dreading it.