The Magic of Santa.

We do Santa. I friggin love Santa. He's all over my house. I prefer super fat Santas and Santas that are doing funny things (like my bouncy Santa that has springs for legs and when you push him down he jiggles forever. I heart him).

Elisabeth is a firm believer in all things magic. This includes Santa, flying reindeer, fairies, talking animals, ghosts, etc. We're totally into letting her explore. When she asks, I do the whole, "Well, what do you think?". Then she rambles. This year she asked me how much money Santa makes and who pays him. I informed her I have no idea how that works. She thinks it's probably different countries that all chip in. Works for me.

When I was little, I remember when I quit believing in Santa. Kids were always debating it on the playgrounds and at the cafeteria during lunch. The majority opinion seemed to be that if you believed you were a baby. Since I didn't want to be presumed a baby, I kept my belief to myself.

One Christmas, I had asked Santa for this baby that crawled. I waited all Christmas Eve night, trying to listen for Santa's reindeer on my grandma's roof as I slowly tried not to die of lung cancer (since it was the late 80s and my entire extended family still smoked). Christmas morning, I ran to the living room to see my much wanted crawling baby. My sister also got her Cricket doll that she'd wanted so badly (remember her? yeah, she got super annoying super fast)

Later that month, my mom brought home pictures she'd developed from Christmas. I was going through them when I saw something that made me pause. My dad had taken a picture of my mom opening a giant Cricket box. Then there were pictures of my mom taking Cricket out and getting all the plastic stuff off. I hurried up and put the pictures back and went to play and think about what I had just seen. If my mom had to take the doll out of the box, then that meant that Santa hadn't come to put it on the couch himself. And if Santa hadn't needed to come and put it on the couch, then that meant...

And that's when I knew. That's when I knew those kids at school were right. That's when I knew that my mom and dad had been "Santa" all along. I don't remember feeling betrayed or lied to or that Christmas was now this dark, false holiday. I just remember thinking two things: 1.If I told my mom I didn't believe she'd definitely cry (due to her being quite the cry baby) and 2.If I told my parents I knew, would they stop leaving gifts from "Santa". I loved getting gifts from Santa. I liked getting my stocking.

I waited almost a year before telling my parents. I remember EXACTLY when I told them. It was almost Thanksgiving. We'd just gotten done shopping at Eagle (hey, Pekinites, remember Eagle grocery store?!) and we were walking to our station wagon. I have no idea why I felt I needed to tell them then, but I waited until i knew Terra was in the car and couldn't hear me (she was younger and still believed, for crying out loud) and my parents were putting the groceries in the trunk. I told my mom and dad I needed to tell them something. I felt a big lump in my throat and my eyes got all stingy. I blurted out really fast that I didn't believe in Santa anymore while tears streamed down my face. They both stood there for a minute staring at me. Then my dad kind of patted my head and told me that was okay. I blinked. They'd handled it so well. My mom hadn't even cried! "Really? Well, will I still get presents?" My mom hugged me and assured me I'd still get a "Santa" present and a stocking. Then they both told me not to tell Terra since she still believed.

I got into the car and felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders. I hadn't made my mom cry (geez, Mom, way to make us feel guilty for making you cry!) and I felt better knowing that Christmas wouldn't change just because I was in on the secret. That Christmas I believe I got a Cabbage Patch Doll from "Santa". I'm also pretty sure it had a mullet.