Monkey: Boogie, I need to tell you something. (Monkey says this with her teacher voice. I'm not sure where she got that.)
Monkey: I need to tell you something important. But you have to promise that you won't tell anyone. (At this point, Boogie is not the least bit interested in the conversation.)
Monkey: Ok. Santa is not real. It is just Mommy and Daddy giving us the presents. But you can't tell ANYONE. Because some kids don't know that and we can't tell them.
OH THE HORROR!! That might be what you are thinking... that I'm in shock, that my 6 year old just told my 3 year old that Santa is not real.
Actually, I thought is was rather funny. Monkey thought she was giving Boogie some important insider information. And Boogie didn't really care.
However, there were some unfortunate events two years ago. Monkey was in preschool. She was newly aware of that fact that Santa wasn't real, I'll explain why later. And as most preschoolers, she is proud of any information she has and wants to share it with everyone. I guess we hadn't made it clear to her that most of her friends believe that Santa is real. So she decided to tell them the truth. I think the the teacher was mostly able to keep it under control. However, she also decided to share her information with my best friend's children whom she rode home with.
My best friend was concerned so I had a talk with Monkey that afternoon. My friend and I thought that maybe if I explained that Santa was based on a real person, that she would quit saying he wasn't real. After using stories from the internet to explain this to her, she said, "Oh, so Santa was real but now he is dead." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this point. I had to explain that, yes, St. Nicholas is dead, but he is a little different than the Santa most people believe in. We discussed him being a made up character similar to those on movies. But the most important thing was that she doesn't hurt her friends feelings. Since we love our friends, we don't want to tell them the truth and hurt their feelings. Also, and this is what made her able to keep quiet, all children will know that Santa is not real as they get older, but it is up to their parents to tell them that. That is a parents' job, not yours. For some reason that worked for her, and she has kept quiet since.
So now here goes the hard part...I'm going to say some stuff that some people may not like. Please remember that I am NOT saying that if you do your Christmas differently that you are wrong. And please don't judge my parenting by the following...
We don't do Santa. That's it, I said it. When Monkey was three, we decided that Santa as a real person was not going to play a role in our celebration of Christmas. At this age, Monkey didn't understand much until the next Christmas when she was in preschool. We decided that if we wanted our children to focus on anything at Christmas, it would be Jesus. We want them to believe in a man that loves them, cares deeply about children, cares deeply about them, and wants to bring them a great gift. That man is Jesus. Second to that is we are very open and honest with our girls. If we play games, they know they are games. I want them to always trust us, and always know when we are serious and when we are playing. I think the truth is the best, and I think kids can handle a lot more than we think.
Do I try to protect my girls from bad and scary stuff? Yes! But when they want to know something, I give them an open, honest answer with as much of the information that I think they can handle for their age.
Do we have fun and play pretend? Yes! But when we do, the girls know it is pretend. When it comes to Santa, we still talk about him. We read stories about him. Monkey and Boogie both say that they can't wait to see what Santa brings,while often adding that they know it's just us. I knew who Santa was by first grade. My mom still played Santa until I was a teenager. We loved every minute of it, and I'm not scarred for my belief being "ruined" at an early age.
So as this Christmas season begins, we are hoping to teach our girls more about Jesus and giving. As you celebrate or don't celebrate with Santa, I ask for you to remember that God, in all his glory, came to be with us, as a tiny, little baby, who would one day take on all of our sin, so that we may be restored to a right relationship with him. What an amazing love story!
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