Pro-Santa
We didn’t do Santa when I was a kid. It wouldn’t have made any sense. Christmas in my family was a huge affair, held at dinner time on Christmas Eve. You can’t rightly convince a kid that Santa delivered presents that came directly from your Aunt’s car, can you? Or, that Santa put presents under the tree weeks in advance?
So, seeing as I didn’t grow up believing in Santa, I really didn’t intend to tell my own children to do so.
Then I brought the subject up with my husband.
He’s Pro-Santa.
He thinks it’s cute.
Plus, we’d get cookies out of the deal.
I can, indeed, see the virtue of a plan that involves me getting to eat cookies.
But, really the discussion brought home the fact that, well… I’m out here. I get to make my own traditions.
Since I’m not in Texas, Christmas won’t actually be an evening event. Christmas can be a “run to the tree on Christmas morning” event. With orange rolls and hot tea for breakfast, if that’s what I want. Christmas doesn’t have to mean waiting all day, while my mom complains that she has to do the cooking every year, and then waiting for the inevitably late aunt or uncle to get off work, or get over the hangover so we can open presents.
I did love Christmas as a kid.
But, I don’t have to re-create the Christmas I knew as a kid. There’s a lot I don’t have to re-create.
It’s like realizing that you don’t HAVE to eat all the vegetables on your plate before you eat dessert.
So, I suppose we will be doing Santa Claus.
tags: family
I’m pro-Santa. He definitely puts the smack down on all the Jesusy BS. :-)
— sam Nov 8, 05:34 PM #
mmm desert before veggies.
and mmm to the cookies!
— Melissa Nov 8, 05:35 PM #
“It’s like realizing that you don’t HAVE to eat all the vegetables on your plate before you eat dessert”
LOL.
That’s so true…it’s funny how we forget that we don’t have to recreate the celebrations of our childhoods!
We can make our own.
— Devious Diva Nov 9, 02:30 AM #
Christmas was AWESOME for me as a kid. Not sleeping at all on Christmas Eve night, waiting for Santa to come, laying in bed with my brother as we whispered “Do you think he came yet? Can we get up yet? If we make Mom coffee and bring it to her, do you think she’ll let us open the presents?”
Then there was the year that my brother and I demanded, very late at night in probably the only truely cold snap Louisiana has had in the last 30 something years, that my dad get up and go get a bale of hay to leave on the front porch for the reindeer. Because it wasn’t fair for Santa to get all the snacks when they were doing all the work, you see? So, my poor Father had to go to the barn, get the hay, come back and leave it on the porch. But we insisted he cut the twine on the hay so the reindeer wouldn’t choke on it :) So….he then had to, once we were in bed, go back outside, sweep up a porchfull of hay and take it back to the barn. Mwhahahahaha. But see, we were thoughtful children :)
I remember making these looong Christmas lists with my Mom every year. As soon as the catalogs came in, we could curl up on the couch and go through them, writing down and pointing out everything we wanted. She’d even ‘mail’ the letters for us ;)
And then there was the days spent at my Grandmother’s, where the tree would have presents stacked so high it looked like they were gonna topple the poor tree. And all my cousins would come over and we’d eat and eat and eat and then we’d get restless and demand that the adults let us open the presents RIGHT NOW.
Ah. So much fun. I looooove Christmas. I can’t imagine not doing Christmas with a child.
Make up your own traditions. Trust me, Vaughn will love them and those memories will be some of his best.
— Zan Nov 9, 06:53 AM #
With my kids we had family presents and Santa presents. I used different wrapping paper for the Santa presents, and writing that had a left handed slant with different form of capital letters.
It will be fun however you make it fun.
— more cowbell Nov 9, 11:55 PM #
My mom, in one of her rare cool mothering moments, told me that Santa Claus was a real guy who lived hundreds of years ago and was so nice that on Christmas people dress up and pretend to be him and parents give presents to their kids to honor his memory.
Which kind of lets you have the Santa-is-awesome deal as a little kid without getting the there-is-no-Santa letdown later in childhood. Plus, leaves out the Jesus bit entirely.
— Vanessa Nov 11, 12:33 AM #
I like the Vanessa’s above comment, that sounds like reasonable way to do Santa. Not sure how to work that one into the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and Santa Triad though…
— Sam Nov 11, 12:41 PM #
You can’t rightly convince a kid that Santa delivered presents that came directly from your Aunt’s car, can you? Or, that Santa put presents under the tree weeks in advance?
The prevailing idea in our house was that gifts under the tree came from people but the stockings were filled with gifts from Santa. That way there wasn’t a problem with getting the big stuff under the tree and the stockings were filled with stuff that my parents could hide in their closet and put in the stockings over night. Judging by the contents in the stockings, Santa was big-time into clean hands, clean socks, and ruined teeth.
I really like Vanessa’s idea. In fact, I might run that idea by my wife.
— trumwill Nov 11, 12:55 PM #