No, Susannah, There Is No Santa Claus

**Warning-spoiler alert and life altering ramifications for any person under 12**

As my husband and I wrapped presents for our kids from Santa tonight, I felt terribly guilty. For one, Santa should have better gift wrapping skills than Hubs and I have (an eggnog induced elf did it) and two, I am flat out lying to my children. What does God say, hmmm?  “Thou shalt not lie!”  Besides that, on a selfish note, I bought the gifts, I wrapped them, but Santa gets all the credit. This isn’t fair to me, either.

I held onto the dream of Santa for a long time. All of my friends tried to convince me that the fat guy wasn’t real. I did start questioning things like how Santa and my mother had incredibly similar handwriting and if his elves made the toys, why did they have brand names like “Cabbage Patch” and “Nintendo”? (I convinced myself for a few years that Santa had a deal going with the big toy companies). But, Dave Brown said he spotted Santa on Radar. Dave Brown was from Trenton! He wouldn’t lie! And I had seen, with my own eyes, sleigh tracks in the snow and boot prints on my roof and I had VHS evidence of him leaving presents under my tree in 84. More importantly, my mama and daddy said he was real. My parents would NEVER lie to me, would they?

“Santa isn’t real, you big baby!” were the exact words that little a-hole in my 5^th grade class said to me. The words kept running through my mind as I tried to concentrate on multiplication tables. How cruel it was for that little a-hole to call me a big baby and try to dash all of my dreams! So what if he caught his mom sitting Super Mario Brothers under the tree on Christmas Eve? It just meant he was such an a-hole that Santa wasn’t about to bring him Mario and Luigi. His mom was just covering for Santa. Nonetheless, I needed some straight answers when I got home.

It has been 20 years since this happened, but I can so vividly remember sitting on my mother’s bed, anticipating going to the movie theater to see “Home Alone” later that evening, and she was hanging clothes in her closet.

“Mama, is Santa real or not? I really have to know. ”

I gulped and I waited. I may have closed my eyes while looking forward to her “yes” answer, but instead, she looked down at me, shook her head, and said “no.”

No? Are you kidding me? You mean to tell me that little a-hole in my class was right? There really is no Santa?

The betrayal began to sink in. Oh, how I had been lied to by the people I trusted the absolute most. My life was over. I would never trust again. I was scorned.

“What about the sleigh tracks in the snow, the boots on the roof?”
“Daddy,” she replied. (Wow, my daddy was pretty damn creative).
“The video of Santa leaving gifts?” I begged for some reassurance.
“Daddy,” she replied. (Wow, my daddy must’ve really piled the pillows in that suit to look so fat).
“Who eats the cookies on Christmas Eve?”
“Mama,” she replied.

I just sat there letting it all sink in and then I began to sob. I am not ashamed to admit that I really broke down and sobbed when I found out Santa wasn’t real.  After all, my childhood was gone.

“The tooth fairy, the Easter bunny?” I stammered through my tears.
“Not real,” she shook her head and she pulled me close to her while I cried on her lap. I was a big fat ten year old girl crying in her mama’s lap because Santa wasn’t real. I bet that little a-hole would have loved to have seen that.

Do I really want to put my daughter through this torment? She is as sensitive as I was when I was a little girl. I just know it is going to break her heart when she learns that this magical being, with his spying elves, his love of Chocolate Chip cookies, his huge heart and huge sleigh and huge piles of presents he brings down the chimney are all lies. Lies spun to her by her own mother, the one person she should always be able to trust.

I do love seeing the gleam in her eyes when she watches that old VHS tape of her granddaddy leaving presents under the tree. I love how she is glued to the television when “The Polar Express” comes on and she really does believe. I love that she gets so excited on Christmas Eve at the thought of Santa slipping down our chimney and his reindeer eating the Cheerios we leave out for them (yeah, Cheerios).  I just dread the day when I have to crush her entire innocent and childlike world with the answer “no”.

This calls for an eggnog.