“Seeing is believing, but sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can’t see.”
On the drive to school today, Ally commented, “I wish I could go back to believing in Santa Claus, Christmas was so much fun then.” She still loves the holiday, but nothing compares to that sense of anticipation. I told her it all comes back and is even better when you’re a parent. Which is true…
Parenting provides some strange challenges. David and I were the worst tooth fairy ever. We routinely forgot (often several nights in a row). And Megan still talks about the morning she came in complaining that the tooth fairy didn’t come—again—and David went in and pretended to search in the pillows and dropped a coin. That’s when she figured it out. I can say with certainty that one thing David and I got right was Santa–we took Santa to a whole new level…
Not only did Santa always eat the cookies and drink the milk and the reindeer also ate the carrots and the oats, but they ALWAYS left a huge mess. Carrots and oats on the roof, muddy boot prints on the hearth, logs in the fireplace displaced, cookies left half-eaten with crumbs all over the coffee table. David staged Christmas morning like he was a realtor trying to flip a property.
So the girls believed and that was the magic—their faces on Christmas morning were precious and I still smile in memory of their reactions to their bounty. Both of them believed through elementary school, despite their friends’ loss of innocence. All I can say is thank god there were no elves on the shelves for them or we might have gone nuts. One night of these shenanigans is enough.
So, in a spirit of sharing, here are David and Beth’s thoughts for keeping the heart of Santa alive. It worked for us. Good luck with your own capers...
1. Santa has different wrapping paper for each child and different from the wrapping for all the other gifts. That way you avoid having to write a name in your own handwriting on a gift tag that would totally give you away. Of course, you then need to make sure that Santa’s paper is safely hidden from the kids (and your husband when he’s looking to wrap his gifts on Christmas morning…) And either use it all year after year or stash it away so that the kids don’t find it in July…good luck.
2. The gas fireplace needs to be turned off well before bedtime and don't even think about having a real fire on Christmas Eve. Santa may be magical, but he’s not fireproof.
3. Bedtime is strictly enforced on Christmas Eve (this was a fairly easy to accomplish—the sooner they got to bed the sooner the big man could come and make his deliveries).
4. Be sure you have your extension ladder available…you’ll understand why.
5. Have a boot and some water handy
6. Food for Santa is left on the table and must be eaten or returned to the cookie jar. For this reason Santa should not get “special” cookies unless you plan on eating them—kids are smart enough to recognize the cookie that they carefully decorated for SC when you’re eating it Christmas day for desert. “Hey, that looks like the cookie I set out for Santa…”
7. The reindeer get oats and carrots. That’s it. None of that sparkle stuff that kids bring home from the school party. Sparkles are not good for reindeer (or the rug). Carrots need to be chewed a little but oats can be returned to the can after you’ve scattered a few for effect on the ROOF. Yes this is where the ladder comes in—at 2 AM you need to climb onto your roof (preferably in your slippers) to scatter oats and carrots. Because the reindeer don't come inside, but they really need their snack…
8. Presents must be artfully arranged and stockings carefully stuffed. The dog should be in bed with the kids because he REALLY likes wrapping paper.
9. Create some mud with the water and dirt from your garden. Put the boot in it a leave a muddy print on the hearth. It doesn’t matter that it hasn't rained in weeks and that the ground is frozen solid.
10. While one of you is gallivanting on the roof, the other should be carefully drafting a letter from Santa that highlights the kids’ accomplishments and lets them know they were good…then you need to copy it in red or green pen in indistinguishable handwriting (this is often where the spirit of joy wears thin, because Santa’s handwriting starts to look like Daddy’s…and it’s nearly 2 AM)
11. Be sure that you have cameras ready, Christmas music in the CD player, and coffee set up before you head up to bed.
12. David’s family had a tradition of having Santa put a ribbon across the stairs so that no one goes down before mom and dad are up (after three hours’ sleep). This is the last thing to do before you crawl into bed, because if the kids wake up and there’s a ribbon across the stairs then they know Santa was here already. DO NOT GET CAUGHT AT THIS POINT or all will be for nothing.
13. Go to bed. Wake up 15 minutes later on Christmas morning. Enjoy the delight of your children.
14. Before any child can go downstairs, an adult HAS go down and push the button to get the coffee brewing—don’t miss this step...
We still put the ribbon up, we are still up late, but now we don’t live in fear of ruining the girls’ childhood fantasies. It’s still a joy to come down on Christmas morning, to bake coffee cake and drink coffee, to give and receive gifts with special meaning, and to know that each Christmas creates its own gift of memory.
Belief is at the heart of all of these things...whether you put your faith in a higher power or nature or the good will of those around you, this is a time of year when many people reveal their better selves through gifts of time and energy, thought and deed. It is at the heart of what this season represents, faith in things unseen, belief that better times will come...
“You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.”