Ho Ho Ho?

I've never really cared about Santa.

Several reasons:

- I'm not cool with outright lying to my children.

- I put great thought into what I give them.

- The idea of a fat man keeping an eye on them all year is creepy.

- Being "good" just for presents isn't what I teach.

- Christmas is about GIVING, not omgwhatdidsantabringme!?

- etc.

When Sophie was turning 4, she learned about Santa from friends.

Eh, ok. I didn't feel the need to spoil her fun.

We went to see Santa at the mall. We wrote him a letter. We made cookies and left them out with a glass of milk. The whole shebang.

Sophie is a curious and very bright kid..

Every once and a while she would ask, "is Santa real?"

To which I would always respond, "what do you think?"

Her answer ranged from "I don't know," to "I think so."

Then there was today.  We were singing Jingle Bells while doing school. Everyone was giggling and happy. I informed Sophie that Christmas is next week.

"We need to make cookies for our friends."

"And Santa," she added. 

She leaned in close and smiled from ear to ear.

 Then she whispered, "I know he's not real." 

"Oh?"

"Ya. I found presents in a blue bucket last year," she started giggling.

Rather than lie and try to form some sort of elaborate Santa story, I just smiled.

" It's fun to pretend though, huh?"

"Ya!"

And we went right on laughing and singing.

She is still just as happy about Christmas. She is still just as excited about wrapping the gift she got her sister. She was even excited about getting a picture with the Santa at our church party.

1 parenting hurdle down, 1,000,000,000 to go!