Tonight we were at a holiday party and the topic of Santa Claus came up. We were all sharing stories of the mistakes we'd made when discussing Santa in front of our kids. I also have been thinking about all the lore that is associated with St. Nicholas and how it evolved over the hundreds of years. The story is actually quite nice and brings a Christian view of St. Nicholas (aka Santa Claus.)
A couple of the slip-ups we've had that I can remember is when Boo asked Noelle if she wanted to help him put some stuff in my stocking. She couldn't understand why he would fill it up and not Santa. Whoops!
One friend said that she remembered that every year their gifts from Santa were wrapped in a different paper from all the rest of the gifts. (We do this.) She said that after Christmas or on Christmas night her mom sent her out to the car to get something from the trunk. There she spied the "special' Santa wrapping paper. She remembers being super disappointed.
Another friend said that her kids noticed the handwriting on the tags was similar to that of her mother's.
Another remembers being old enough that his dad told him and his older brother to come out to the garage to help him assemble some toys for his younger siblings.
This has got me thinking about when the time will come that our kids will figure it out. Will they be super disappointed or will they just say they knew it all the time?
I think I figured it out when I found some presents in my mom's closet and then on Christmas saw that they were from Santa. Knowing how I was as I kid I was probably pretty proud that I had figured it out thinking that no one could pull a fast one on me.
As I've read in some of the Christmas books we have and some of what I've found on the internet and also a nice talk given recently at a church meeting, to believe that St. Nicholas did indeed live and did kind things is to believe in the spirit of Santa. Although I know there is no magical man that wiggles his nose to get from one place to another, I believe in the good that is Santa. Do you still believe?
1 comments:
I learned when I was eight and kept saying, I had to go to bed because Santa was coming. My father whispered in my ear that there was no Santa, so I would relax and stay up with them for a Christmas Eve story.
I felt grown up, not let down at all.
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