Yes, Yes my child, Santa is real.

Growing up, I never believed in Santa. I was raised in a very religious home and from as far back as I can remember, I knew Christmas was Jesus's Birthday and Santa was make-believe. I don't regret it. My Christmases were always a magical time for me where I totally enjoyed giving more than receiving. Because I think it shaped my morality well, I was all prepared to be this way with my kids.

The first few years, I never mentioned Santa. I decorated mainly with angels and never once mentioned where the gifts came from. I was keeping things open for Santa in case I changed my mind, but in my heart, I had every intention on just leaving Santa out of it.


Yeah, well, the schools disagree with me. This year, my oldest is 6 years old. She's in first grade. Last year she heard of Santa at school. They brought him up and told some story, but this year is the first year it appears she knows enough about Santa to know he brings gifts. We discussed it last month at some point on the way to school where I said something to the effect of...

"Once upon a time a long long time ago, a man felt bad for all the poor kids. We are talking really poor where they didn't always get to eat, and when they did, it was NEVER anything they really wanted to eat. They didn't have ANY toys, not even for their birthday. This guy decided to make sure they got to eat their favorite foods and got a toy one special day of the year, Christmas. So every year, he gave kids in his neighborhood toys and food. Other people thought that was a great idea, and they started doing it, and people all over the world started doing this. Every town had their own "santa." Given, the first Santa Claus isn't here anymore, we keep his spirit alive every time we give a gift to someone."

Not bad right? Bull shit. Went in one ear and out the other. They didn't fucking listen to one word.

So, this Christmas, 3 kids, I intended on getting them all iTouches. We have one iPad everyone shares, and it's driving me crazy up the wall "I could choke a bitch out" bonkers when they fight over that stupid thing. They use it all the time too. They are constantly watching Netflix or playing kick the buddy or shooting zombies. The 2 year old is obsessed with shooting zombies and monsters, like I'm not sure I should consider therapy yet or not over it. I figured I'd wait until after December this year to worry about it, you know, after making sure the zombie apocalypse isn't real.

So tonight, I hop online to look at iTouches, but I remember the 6 year old wanting a Nintendo DS, so I looked at those too. I personally think the kids would use the iTouch more because you can watch movies on it. I think the DS will get played a bunch of times for about a month, maybe a month. They just don't like the games yet, like on the Wii, they watch Netflix more than the games, and IF they play a game, it's Wii Sports. All games we own, they played when they first got the game and that was it, and they seem to hate the arrow portion of the remote. Now the computer, they get on Nick Jr.'s website and those games they love.

So anyway, with that said, the oldest child sees the pictures of the Nintendo DS's and starts telling me how she wants one so bad. Blue. Midnight Blue to be exact. Then the middle kid comes up here and tells me she wants pink. So I ask them both, do you prefer this (pics of Nintendo DS) or this (pics of iTouches), and both are freaking out for the DS. "It's way cooler mommy." Duh. Then at some point, she was like, "I got an idea, Santa can get that for us, will you ask him for me?" I was like, "Sure, we'll see."

So then I proceeded to say, "You know you have to be good for Santa right?" and she's like, "Huh?" I was like really? I told the husband right there, "You know the schools have no problem telling them about the bearded fat guy in the red suit with the reindeer that fly into the night like it's basic physics, but they still leave out the damned morality part." And I looked at my daughter and said in a very serious non-singing voice, "Yes, you have to be good. He's making a list. He's checking it twice. He's gonna find out who's naughty or nice. Santa Claus is coming. He's coming to town. He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake." 

So about 5 minutes after that conversation, the child then comes up to me, "Do we have to clean this house for Santa?" And I was like "yeah, especially your room. Santa gets mad if he steps in goo, or trips over toys, like he may just decide you have too many toys and you don't need any from him." She's already started cleaning.

Yes. Yes this Santa deal isn't such a bad idea after all. I'm on board with it. I think I might buy some Santa looking stuff this year, like a friendly reminder to clean the house and stop crying over shit. I need to find that song too about Santa coming to town. If they start to doubt me, that song will just prove I'm right.

 

I'm still decking out the tree in angels. All of my children are named after angels. Aha, and when they find out their names are in the Jesus story, He will still trump the fat guy in the winter clown suit and my conscience will be clear. If you knew all the things I've done for a Klondike bar, you too would be trying to get extra brownie points with the man upstairs.