No, Emari, There Really Isn't a Santa Claus.
So don't jump the gun and start thinking I'm some sort of Grinch or something. I absolutely love Christmas. Growing up, though not always drowning in gifts, the holiday was celebrated extremely in our house. I carried a lot of my mom's traditions over into my own household and Josh and I even came up with some of our own which I hope are cool enough to make it into my kids' repertoire of Christmas cheer.
However, something that we decided our first year of marriage, which also was our first year with kids at Christmas, was that we were not going to tell our kids that Santa brought their presents. Funny thing, traditions. They're passed down you see, from generation to generation and when you decide to do things a little differently, people get a little out of joint. That first year Josh actually had to dress up as Santa at work, so we got off a little easy with Tony. We could actually say that Daddy was Santa. There was just something about giving all the credit to some guy that the kids didn't even know when we were the ones scrounging up the extra money and driving all over Fayetteville looking for the perfect gifts. Call us selfish, but we wanted our kids to know who was sacrificing for them.
You look ahead in time and see that if we did teach them that Santa brought their gifts, the Easter bunny hid eggs in the yard, the Tooth Fairy exchanged their tooth for cash, and Jesus died for their sins, how were they going to be able to separate the fact from the fiction? None of these were they actually able to see, and at a certain age they were expected to understand the difference between real and fantasy. I really didn't want my kids stumbling over this. It just wasn't worth it for the pictures on Santa's lap and such. Mom and dad fill up the stockings at Christmas, Dad and Papa hide the eggs at Easter, mom is the tooth fairy and Jesus is real. No I have not robbed my kids of their childhood by denying them the typical holiday traditions, I set them up to be able to stand and know what they really believe. Sorry, Virginia.
However, something that we decided our first year of marriage, which also was our first year with kids at Christmas, was that we were not going to tell our kids that Santa brought their presents. Funny thing, traditions. They're passed down you see, from generation to generation and when you decide to do things a little differently, people get a little out of joint. That first year Josh actually had to dress up as Santa at work, so we got off a little easy with Tony. We could actually say that Daddy was Santa. There was just something about giving all the credit to some guy that the kids didn't even know when we were the ones scrounging up the extra money and driving all over Fayetteville looking for the perfect gifts. Call us selfish, but we wanted our kids to know who was sacrificing for them.
You look ahead in time and see that if we did teach them that Santa brought their gifts, the Easter bunny hid eggs in the yard, the Tooth Fairy exchanged their tooth for cash, and Jesus died for their sins, how were they going to be able to separate the fact from the fiction? None of these were they actually able to see, and at a certain age they were expected to understand the difference between real and fantasy. I really didn't want my kids stumbling over this. It just wasn't worth it for the pictures on Santa's lap and such. Mom and dad fill up the stockings at Christmas, Dad and Papa hide the eggs at Easter, mom is the tooth fairy and Jesus is real. No I have not robbed my kids of their childhood by denying them the typical holiday traditions, I set them up to be able to stand and know what they really believe. Sorry, Virginia.
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