The Ghost of Christmas Past

I know this guy who is divorced (I'll call him J) and sometimes he takes himself a little too seriously.  So, on Thanksgiving when J and his girlfriend posed a question to me about Santa Claus,  his 8 year old daughter and his ex-wife, I thought he was taking himself too seriously and I sided with his ex (yikes!).  For me to side with V (that's what I'll call her) on anything is remarkable because, well, I hate her.

V wants to keep the dream alive for her daughter and allow her to believe that Santa is still real.  J says, that if asked, he will tell his daughter the truth because, "He always wants to be truthful with her" and "have a relationship based on honesty" and yada-yada-yada that people say when they take themselves too seriously and think too much.  I think he's really only thinking about himself and not the joy of childhood and the fun of it all for a mother to experience with her only child. 

I tell them what I think, but J seems unconvinced and so shocked that I would agree with V that I don't even think he's really listening.  So, I call over my oldest child who loved Santa Claus with a pure heart longer than most...

I did my absolute best to keep Santa alive for James.  I didn't consider it a lie, I considered it a dream. A beautiful, fantastic dream that I didn't want him to wake from.  And he didn't want to stop believing.

I wrapped the presents in special "Santa" paper and wrote the to/from in special "Santa" hand writing.  One year when James was getting older (8 or 9) Santa left him a note in his stocking so that he would know that he exsisted and that James shouldn't give up.  This was due to mounting pressure from classmates that Santa didn't exsist.  At this point, there were two camps in the classroom - the believers and the believe nots.

The next year, the Wii came out.  James asked Santa for it on his yearly Christmas list that he dutifully wrote and mailed to the North Pole.   When the Wii was under the tree on Christmas morning James beamed with delight.  I thought its was purely because he had received it, but I didn't realize what it really meant to James untill he returned to school from Christmas break.

 I picked him up that first day back and I asked how his day was.  "Great!" He said,  "I told them all that Santa really exsists and that I had proof!".  "Wow!" I said, "What was your proof?"  "The Wii", he said, "I know people had to wait in crazy lines for it and it was hard to find anywhere. So, I told my friends that I knew there was a Santa Claus because I had gotten a Wii and my mom would have NEVER stood in any lines!".  And, alas, he was right.  I hadn't stood in any lines.  My mother had gotten up at 3am to stand in line at Walmart because she had heard a rumor that they were going to have some in stock that day. 

The dream continued untill James was closing in on 12.  That early spring I was having a party and asked James to break down some cardboard boxes and put them out for recycling.  They were Amazon boxes from the mother who not only won't stand in a line at 3am, she won't stand in any store during the entire month of December.  But, I, the "dumbest smart person" (as my husband affectionately calls me) had left the packing receipts in the boxes and my believer saw them.  He awoke from his dream with a shock.  Anger and sadness closed in on him and tears welled up in his eyes.  The movies, the commercials, his special note in his stocking... all a sham.  His dream filled with magic and the man he had been loyal to for so long faded away.  Christmas would never be the same for him or for me.

I cried that night thinking of all that I had lost with this tough growing pain.  James is a special kid...a believer in good, a fighter for his dreams, a heart beating with magic. James is Christmas and Christmas is James.  It would never be the same.  The delight in his eyes, the passion for Santa, the excitment of writing that letter, leaving out the cookies, trying to stay up as late as possible in his bed listening for reindeer because he knows we have a flat-roofed city house and its perfect for Santa to land on.... all were gone.  And it was all replaced with a "knowing".  That "knowing" seemed to make my child grow quicker in the next 3 years than he had in the last 12. 

So, I bekon to my oldest on Thanksgiving (now 14) and pose this question to him, "James, would you have wanted me to tell you the truth about Santa when you were 8 or would you have rather had the 3 extra years of Santa."  Without a pause he answers, "I would take the extra years."  And, so would I (sigh) so would I...

To all you who celebrate Christmas,  cherish your Santa years with your children.  Keep the dream alive, and know that when the "knowing" sets in,  your child will age at the speed of lightning.  Its a beautiful dream filled with hope, magic, and goodness...don't wake them too soon.  If it's a lie, its a "white lie" and God dosen't mind those anyway.