santa

matt and i have had some discussion lately about santa and decided to talk with the kids (well, at least madelyn) about him not being real and moving away from that part of christmas celebrations.  there were many, many factors in making this decision for our family, here are just a few:

1. we want to focus on Jesus' birth.
2. we ask our kids to believe in God/Jesus/Holy Spirit which they cannot see but are very real and feel that it gets muddied with other things we ask them to believe in which are not real (and they cannot see).
3. why should santa get credit for all the good presents when matt (and i) work hard to provide them.
4. it is just easier not having to lie.
5. mason was trying to remind us of something last year and when he said the "Christmas guy" i asked if he meant santa.  nope.  he meant Jesus.  (head hanging in shame.)  he was talking about a "night in bethlehem" event we went to last year were there was a tax collector who "took our money".  he talks about Jesus pretty much daily so it felt a little bit like God giving me a nudge that mason would have this random lapse in memory.

i was a little nervous about how to have this conversation with madelyn at bedtime (of course matt thought that i should explain things).  we had discussed only telling madelyn and just not doing santa with the boys (they would never know to believe).  part of telling madelyn that santa wasn't real (we did discuss saint nicholas who was real) was also explaining that the easter bunny and tooth fairy were also not real.  i explained that these were just fun pretend things and that daddy and i wanted to tell her the truth about them so that we could focus on things that were real.  i also explained that we should not ruin the fun for our friends and let their parents decide when it was best to tell them (i think it helps that we focus a lot on other families' rules being different than ours when we see other kids doing things we do not allow - it was an easy concept for her to grasp).

here is the funny part - she said, "yea, i was thinking that i was going to ask you if santa was real or not."  i asked if she had any questions about what i had told her - "so you and daddy fill all those eggs with candy and hide them?  how do you get the money under my pillow when i loose a tooth?!"  we were so worried about santa and she could care less (i think it had to do with still getting presents anyway - very little impact for her).  i told her that we would still do all the fun parts without imaginary 'people'.  she was really focused on the tooth fairy and i told her that daddy did the money switch for the tooth and she would have to ask him (he wasn't getting off scott-free).  i asked if she would still like us to put money under her pillow and she said that she would like to keep doing it that way even through it was just daddy.

of course, first thing saturday morning (we told her on friday night in the hopes of it not being new and exciting information when she got to school on monday) she had to explain about easter eggs and the tooth fairy to mason, and, oh yea, santa too.  neither of them cared one little bit.  if anything i think they are more excited!

i hope no one reading this feels poorly about santa, etc.  it was just the right choice for our family and i wanted to share the why for those who cared to know.  plus, i wanted to warn you not to ask too many questions about santa if there are other little kids around.  (madelyn has already tried to ask me questions about santa in a public place - she was trying to get attention from bystanders that she knew the truth - and i had to tell her that those were questions for private at home.)  much love to you all as the holidays approach!  love.