coming of age - the Santa myth
Every year at work on one of the Saturdays before Christmas, there is a party for the kids. It's a pretty cool thing. You send in a list of your kids and their ages and they throw a party with a buffet style lunch with chicken fingers, hot dogs and other kid friendly foods, and a huge dessert bar thing to pump up the sugar ratio. Santa shows up with age appropriate presents. Nothing huge, mind you but something, and to be honest, the age appropriate part is subject to interpretation. The last year we took the youngster, he looked at whatever he got like....yeah, right. But you get some cute pictures and go home.
When he was 9, the youngster was pretty sure there was no Santa, but wanted to believe, bad. He wanted to believe because he wanted a dog, and he had asked for a dog, and his nasty father said, absolutely no way! I've had puppies before and I don't need the carpets stained and baseboards subjected to teething. NO! With a capital NO! So if dad's Santa, there will not be a dog....so please God, let there be a Santa. We managed, with the help of neighbors, to hide a puppy until Christmas eve and on Christmas morning that year, there was a puppy under the tree. That story will wait for another day, but the point is, the belief in Santa got a major boost. There had to be a Santa because dad wasn't going to allow a dog. He even held it up to my face Christmas morning and begged me to let him keep it, and worried that I might say, "No!" It was pretty cute.
So we got to last year when we came clean. The dog thing got us through one more Christmas when he was 10, but by 11, his friends pretty much had him convinced Santa was dad, so he just came out and asked one morning and I admitted defeat.
Where I'm getting is the invitation just came out for this year's Christmas party with instructions to let people know what your kid's ages are and so on. I think I've gotten to the first year when I don't even have to broach the subject at home. There's no way the yongster is going to want to go, even if they do have free chicken fingers. The boy is growing up.
When he was 9, the youngster was pretty sure there was no Santa, but wanted to believe, bad. He wanted to believe because he wanted a dog, and he had asked for a dog, and his nasty father said, absolutely no way! I've had puppies before and I don't need the carpets stained and baseboards subjected to teething. NO! With a capital NO! So if dad's Santa, there will not be a dog....so please God, let there be a Santa. We managed, with the help of neighbors, to hide a puppy until Christmas eve and on Christmas morning that year, there was a puppy under the tree. That story will wait for another day, but the point is, the belief in Santa got a major boost. There had to be a Santa because dad wasn't going to allow a dog. He even held it up to my face Christmas morning and begged me to let him keep it, and worried that I might say, "No!" It was pretty cute.
So we got to last year when we came clean. The dog thing got us through one more Christmas when he was 10, but by 11, his friends pretty much had him convinced Santa was dad, so he just came out and asked one morning and I admitted defeat.
Where I'm getting is the invitation just came out for this year's Christmas party with instructions to let people know what your kid's ages are and so on. I think I've gotten to the first year when I don't even have to broach the subject at home. There's no way the yongster is going to want to go, even if they do have free chicken fingers. The boy is growing up.
John put this out here at 1:32 PM
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