The Santa Issue

This is always a sticky one.  There are as many different means of handling The Santa Issue as there are people to handle it.  As those of you with children no doubt know already, The Santa Issue is nothing more than the dilemma faced by all parents who celebrate Christmas when it becomes clear that it’s time to tell your children that Santa doesn’t exist.  My wife and I believed we had hit upon the perfect solution.  Of course, things didn’t work out quite as well as we planned.

Our son is 12-years old, and he’s been in on The Santa Issue for a couple of years now.  When he was entering the fourth grade, we knew that time was running short.  We spent many evenings debating the best means of letting him know the truth.  Do we wait for him to ask?  Do we let nature take its course with his friends in school or on the playground?  Do we launch a preemptive strike so it can be dealt with on our own terms?  All valid approaches, all discussed between the two of us.

What we both knew was that we didn’t want our kids to find out the way we did.  My wife had the news rudely broken to her in school one day.  I found out in the 4th grade, when my brother made a comment to my mom about what he wanted for Christmas and I innocently asked, “Why don’t you ask Santa for it?”  Without blinking an eye, my brother replied, “Because Santa isn’t real.”  (Thanks Joe!)  My mom, presented with a fait accompli, merely nodded her head at me sadly.  At least that was better than how my little sister found out.  She came downstairs one Christmas Eve to ask my parents for a drink of water, only to find Mom stuffing stockings.  Oops.

Determined not to have our kids similarly traumatized, we finally agreed to go with the preemptive strike.  And if I do say so myself, the tactics we devised was brilliant.  We decided that one day, when we felt the time was right, we’d take him aside and  say, “Sam, you’re getting older now, and being as smart as you are, we know you’re going to figure this out soon.  Plus, we know you’re a really responsible guy, so it’s time we let you in on a secret only grown-ups know about.  Sam….Santa Claus isn’t real.  Mom and I are the ones who buy all the presents.  We know you’re probably disappointed, but we thought it was important you found out from us instead of hearing it at school, plus we know you’re old enough to handle it.  Big kids get more responsibility, and we think you’re just about the most responsible kid your age.”  The ego-stroking part of it was so smooth that I was patting myself on the back about it for weeks.

The trouble was that as I patted my self on the back, I also kept delaying the actual conversation.  We couldn’t agree on a time that felt right, so we kept putting it off, and putting it off.  Finally, near Halloween, Sam asked us one night, “Mom, Dad, is Santa real?”

The first word that went through my head was “Crap”.  Thankfully, it was not the first word out of my mouth.  After sharing a look with my wife, I chose a delaying tactic.  “Why do you ask?”

“Because a guy at school said Santa wasn’t real, and I bet him that he was.  I need to know so I’ll know if I won the bet.”

At that point, “crap” evolved to something a bit more profane in my head, and the look my wife and I shared at this news was along the lines of a wince.  With the issue now forced, I tried to recover by launching into our agreed-upon strategy.

“Well, Sam, now that you’ve asked, Mom and I have been meaning to talk to you about this.  We think you’re old enough and responsible enough to know a secret only bigger kids and grown-ups know.  No, Santa isn’t real.  Mom and I are the ones who buy all the presents.”

He nodded a bit, with sort of a grim look on his face.  It’s the face he usually gets when he’s trying not to cry.

“How much did you bet your friend?”

“A dollar.”

“Okay, that’s not too bad.”  This, of course, gave me a chance to do two things:

1. Talk to him about why he shouldn’t make bets without knowing what he was betting on, why he shouldn’t gamble his money at all at his age, how a person should always pay off his bets if he loses, and so on.  All of which also allowed me to….
2. Change the subject away from Santa Claus.

With his emotions now under control, partly because he had gotten over the shock of the truth about Santa, and partly out of relief that I wasn’t yelling at him about making bets that he shouldn’t, Sam seemed okay with the conversation.  And I was pretty pleased with it myself.  The timing may have been dictated to us, but at least we were prepared for it and had a plan that served the real purpose of not making him too upset at the news.  All in all, it went as well as can be expected.

Right up to the point where I added, “Oh yeah, there’s no Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy, either.”

Without getting into the details of what followed, let’s just say that I won’t be given the opportunity to traumatize our 7-year old daughter in a few years.  My wife will be handling that one.