Friday, Jul 4, 2008
As I see it, lying about Santa is like covering for a friend who's having an affair with a jerk.
Dec 16, 1999 | I am not one of those just-the-facts moms who refuses to indulge in culturally sanctioned childhood fantasies. The Easter bunny and I are in an advanced stage of co-dependency. At the drop of a baby tooth, a fairy whizzes into our house under cover of darkness, chunks of change in her tiny invisible pockets.
But I hate being a good citizen of fantasy land when it comes to Santa. As I see it, lying about Santa is like covering for a friend who's having an affair with a jerk. I'll take the shine off the truth now and then for a good cause, but for this guy?
The once innocent saint who put candy in children's shoes on Dec. 6th and encouraged secret acts of kindness has long since become the incarnate spirit of getting. He is a debased pusher for that peculiarly American idea that you get more things, more toys, more clothes, more candy, because you are "good," not because it just turned out that way due to matters of chance, such as what kind of job, or values, your parents have.
Case in point. Last year, we were visiting friends a few days after Christmas. "Look what Santa brought me!" cried the sole child occupant of the household, gesturing toward her playroom, an Ali Baba cave of new toys. Our eldest daughter, then 7, mentally compared her own ample but relatively modest stack, and sighed, almost to herself, "I guess I wasn't that good this year."
You could have knocked me over. "You're not that good any year! " I wanted to shout. "Neither is Lily! No kid is!"
Where had our daughter gotten the idea that if she'd been better behaved, she'd get more presents? Not from my husband or me. We'd never waged an active anti-Santa campaign, but neither had we ever told her that being "good" made you Santa's special friend. We left her on her own to figure out what she'd like to believe about Santa. Big mistake.
Now Mr. Ho Ho Ho had made my daughter feel bad. This brought on the mother bear response, one which I could growl only internally: "Die, Santa. Die."
But what could I tell her? The truth? "Lily has more presents than you do because her daddy walked out on her mommy and feels guilty; her mommy is trying to show her that life without daddy will be just as nice; and her mommy's mommy and her daddy's mommy are trying to show who's the best grandma." Or should I just let it go with a Mae West-ian "Goodness had nothing to do with it."
Obviously, I couldn't say any of those things, or even milder, child-appropriate version thereof. If I did, I would be the evil mother who ruins the magic of Christmas for my daughter. So I've been told. I'm a prisoner of Santa culture, too.
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