There comes a time in every child’s life that they realise Santa is not ‘real’. That the gifts left in the santa sack are actually done so by parents or guardians and not the ‘real santa’. This is an often heartbreaking discovery and if you take a moment, you will remember the time or situation or state of revelation when you discovered that Santa was a myth.
For all of us it is different and for all of our upbringings, there is also a different belief in what Santa is, whether he exists or not, the history or the commercialism that is adopted within our own family folktales of xmas.
Before I became a parent I was steadfast in my conviction that we would not believe in Santa in our family – that the heartbreak of discovery would be something my children would be ‘saved’ from. But when I had children, I too was sucked into the void that is Santa as the osmosis of society permeated my children’s belief system and I had to carry on the myth – knowing that one day they would suffer the pain of discovery.
This year, my youngest child told me that he knew that Santa wasn’t real and he knew it was me. And I, like all parents who have fostered a falsehood continued with the lies involuntarily and said, “well in our house, if you don’t believe he doesn’t come”. And so the santa sacks were laid out and santa came and will continue to do so until all my kids are 3o, a promise I barely remember making at some time after a drunken xmas lunch when speaking with my eldest children, who continue to marvel and adore their youngest sibling’s naive joy that santa had brought him gifts.
So what is my advice on the santa myth? Whatever works for you I guess. Of all our plans for parenthood, in practicality, none of it actually works and deep down as parents, no matter what we read or believe to be true, we are flying by the seat of our pants in a rapidly changing world where rules and black and white are all blurred into grey, and trying not to scar our children forever – but we will – whether it is with love or deep dark agendas – all will be revealed. We have to continue to hope that we are going OK and that everything will end up as it should.
Merry xmas, happy holidays, enjoy your family time, and for all the widows out there – we rock and we did it again!
Carry on
