Dec 21, 2011
Christmas Fears
Last week I was invited to a gathering of moms and kids from my husband’s ward. (They split the wards just after I quit attending so I don’t actually know many of the people my family attends church with. My daughter, however, spends every Sunday with these children [and their mothers - who chiefly seemed to be members of the Primary presidency] and so I thought I ought to go and get acquainted.) As we were sitting around the kitchen one mom raised her concerns about how to break it to her kids that Santa isn’t real. Image(s) courtesy VintageHolidayCrafts.com
She told us that when she was a girl her mother played up the Santa thing to the hilt. She would wake up Christmas morning not just to presents and some half-eaten cookies, but also sooty footprints in the living room and reindeer tracks in the yard. Her mom put enormous energy into making certain her kids believed in Santa (and the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc). But then — on their ninth birthday — she took them out for ice-cream and just gave it to them straight — “Santa isn’t real.”
Imagine the broken hearts.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Santa this year. My oldest is 4 and this Christmas is the first one that she really ‘gets’. I’ve wondered whether Santa ought to be real in our house or not.
The thing is, my Santa experience was nothing like my friend’s. My parents were really laid back in the Santa department. They never suggested that Santa wasn’t real but they never went out of their way to suggest he was. I honestly don’t remember a time that I did believe in Santa, but I don’t remember not believing in him either. Santa was a story. A comfortable, jolly, fun story that had almost nothing to do with my real life.
My father, with his jelly-belly, rosy cheeks and a white beard, has been conscripted to play Santa enough times that he actually owns his own Santa suit. I wasn’t paying attention one day and mentioned that fact within my daughter’s hearing, which caused some concern for others. My daughter just gave it some thought and then asked me, “Mom, is Santa for real?”
“Well,” Said I, “What do you think?”
She paused again then asked me one of the best questions I’ve ever been asked, “Do you believe your Dad is real?”
“Yes,” I said, “Yes I do.”
“Well, your Dad dresses up like Santa, so Santa must be real.”
It was a great answer. And one that gives me hope.
My husband still takes the kids to church each Sunday. Sometimes I am worried about the religious training my kids receive at church. I want them to know their heritage, but I don’t want them indoctrinated. At the same time, I don’t want to be the mom in the car with the ice cream, breaking the “truth” to the kids when it is guaranteed to hurt the most.
I worry, but I suspect I don’t really need to. Already I have had conversations with my daughter about baptism (why everyone doesn’t have to be baptized) and mother in heaven (she can’t quite figure that one out), and she is only four. If I let the curiosity and questions continue then when she asks me, “Is it true?” I can answer in the best possible way, “What do you think?”
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