Yes, Levi there is a Santa Claus - and he's you

English: Santa Claus with a little girl Esperanto: Patro Kristnasko kaj malgranda knabino Suomi: Joulupukki ja pieni tyttö (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the days leading up to Christmas I have found myself in 4 separate conversations about how to tell children about Santa Claus. One friend shared with a touch of shock that another friend continued to tell her 11yr old that Santa was real.  The woman insisted that her child told her everything and that if he had stopped believing, she would know. "We have a very good relationship.", was the closing remark.

At a neighborhood holiday party, a couple of new parents with a babe in arms struggled with whether or not to start the Santa story with their child. The question came immediately, "How do you stop the lie once you start?

And there it is. Creating a magical, childhood fantasy feels like a parental dream, until the day that the question comes. "Is Santa Claus real?" or "Which one is the real Santa?"  The dream really collapses when the child skips the question and moves straight to the assertion, "I know you're the one who gives the Santa presents." Do you counter?  Do you create an elaborate description about why they are wrong or do you enlist them in the conspiracy to protect the secret from their younger siblings?

These were the stories that I kept hearing this week.  The tales of the big reveal.  Grown adults still clearly remembering the night they saw their mom stuffing the stocking, sans beard and reindeer.  Some of the stories were more about the icky feelings that came from being privy to elaborate charades. Like the time when they heard their neighbors' plans to throw dog poop on the porch roof and chastise "Santa's reindeers" for the indiscretion.

In the same month that our children our hearing about kindergartners being slaughtered, it makes sense that we would want to create some type of figurehead for goodness, generosity, and selflessness.  What has never made sense to me is why we would create that figurehead as a stranger outside of our own homes, cities, and outside of our own selves.  We never wrote "Santa" on a gift tag.  When my 4 or 5 year old hit school and asked about Santa, I told the truth - as I understood it and as I wanted it to be for our family.  Santa was a real person. People call him different things depending on where they live but for us he's based on the man, St. Nicholas.  He gave gifts in secret, without any acknowledgement.  He was kind and wanted to make people feel special.  People liked what he did so much that even after he died they wanted to keep that special feeling alive.  Now, lots of people try to be like St. Nicholas.  They give gifts in secret, not using their real name, so that the attention is not on them and the person doesn't feel like they have to give a gift back.

I wasn't sure how my little speech was going to go over. The next year I got my answer on St. Nicholas day. I saw the traditional chocolate candy, orange and small gift(from my husband) and next to that, another piece of candy -not given by my husband but by "St. Nicholas".  That year good ol' St. Nick came in the form of a very small kindergartner. It felt special indeed, mysterious, and magical.  In the midst of all my concerns about how fragile my son's childhood would be, I had instead created a way for him to hang on to innocence, magic, and wonder.  It isn't outside of him or something that I need to wrap him in like a blanket of protection.  All of that goodness is inside him waiting to be offered up to the world. Yes, Levi, there is a Santa Claus - and he's you.

Cookie Day=Sanity

Napoleon Creams, Russian Teacakes, Cherry Blossoms, Nutmeg Logs, Maple Nutty Bars, Cranberry Pistachio Bark, 3 Shortbreads, Lemon Iced, and the still illusive-perfect-spice-cookie, these are the bits of the holidays that surround me today.  I just finished my annual cookie day(s), baking the Christmas treats that will highlight our gatherings and care packages. (The picture here doesn't do them justice.  I clearly don't have a career in food photography.)

My husband and sons, brothers and sisters, various neighbors and kids' classmates are always anxious to see if their favorite sweet treat will make the cut and be included in the lineup for that year's cookie day. Many people have questioned my sanity, my patience, and my commitment to 8-9 different varieties.  What about just making the perfect shortbread and calling it a day?  The answer is that cookie day IS my sanity and helps restore my patience with the small difficulties in my life. You see, cookie day is a labor of love and it is a labor that I share with my best friend.

Cookie day has evolved into an overnight and now this year, two nights and two days of baking mania.  13 pounds of butter and 12 pounds of powdered sugar later and my friend and I divvy up the "fruits" of our labor and return to our normal mom, family, and work demands. We return to a schedule of short phone calls, squeezed in during train commutes or waiting spells in the parking lot during school pick ups. I always think that we will delve into some heartfelt, Hallmark movie type dialogue during our baking intensive.  Maybe it's the effect of inhaling so much butter or tasting so much dough but what we really do, is just hang out with a dash of goofy.  It's such a gift, my favorite holiday gift, to spend time with her and just relax.

So, for the person on your list who you can never find the "right" gift, I suggest a day of hang time.  It's amazing to me to be with my friend and not have to watch the clock.  It's a sad commentary on our over scheduled lives but I know I'm not alone.  The more we work so that we can afford stuff, the more we wish we could just be with each other and relax a little.  Let that be your gift.  And if the family or coworkers in your life get frustrated with you being unavailable for a day or two, do what I do.  Feed them cookies.

Space and Sharing

My post, Attachment Parenting, left me going down memory lane a bit.  I realized, as I looked back, that our early decisions to practice attachment parenting extended to many more intentional decisions even as our kids started to grow up.  Shared space in the form of a sling or a bed turned into a shared bedroom, shared toys, one family computer, and one television.  Interestingly enough, these very simple choices sometimes felt just as counter cultural as having a home birth.

For Christmas one year we made the earth shattering decision  to purchase a Game Boy for the boys.  It felt like a life changing moment for our family.  Choosing to buy only one and have both boys share it was our way of keeping our little team in balance.  I remember the day after Christmas when they told their friends what they had gotten.  I felt a twinge of guilt for not giving them each their own and then I heard my son say, "It's ok, cuz I'm good at the jumps and he's good at finding the treasures.  So we are going fast through the levels."

Pokemon and Game Boy of the past. (Photo credit: heath_bar)

Those stupid video games had them going to the store and negotiating which new game they would purchase, returning to trade old, conquered ones for a new challenge.  They needed to come to consensus on each acquisition or spend 100% of their own money on a game that they could only play when the other person was otherwise occupied. Even with our imposed limits they managed to be obsessed by the images on the four inch screen.  We were far from Amish and yet I still felt like I was out of the normal range of accepted U.S. parenting practices.  I felt out of sync because I was resisting the consumption driven culture.  How dare I not purchase as much as possible for my children.  How dare I make them wait for the latest game until they could buy it for themselves or find it used or for trade, 6 months later.

We bought the Game Boy because we wanted to do something special for our children. We wanted to indulge one of their kiddie desires. We minimized how much it could control our lives by insisting that our sons shared it and by limiting when they could use it - 10 hour car rides to South Dakota -YES!; parties at friends' homes - NO!  We aren't carrying them in a sling anymore but we are still trying to find ways that we can share space and stuff as a family.

It changes over time but there is always something, at every developmental age, that ends up forcing us to decide what is right for our family.  Now, there are nights when we are all within 10 feet of each other but on a different screen -, tv, computer, ipod.  I'm grateful that we decided to have the screens only on the first level of our house and I'm grateful that we have one tv that requires us to negotiate/talk/argue. Now that we have teenagers it feels like we are starting to reap the benefits of our families' counter cultural revolution.  I'm glad that we are still attached and sharing space.