Jen's column / Santa

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah and Happy New Year, everyone! Hope you're having a fantastic holiday season.

Here's last week's column. I have yet to write next week's... but once it's done, you'll be the first to know. :), Jen

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“Santa isn’t real,” my five-year-old announced at the dinner table on Monday night, his face peppered with tomato sauce from our traditional Christmas Eve spaghetti dinner. “He’s just a fairytale.”

I was not prepared for this. Bergen is my youngest child. My I’m-still-small-enough-to-believe-everything-Mommy-says child. My believer.

I did my best to recover the situation.

“If Santa is a fairytale,” I asked, “who’s bringing your presents tonight?”

“Spies,” said Bergen matter of factly. “Spies sneak into our house and bring us presents. Then they sneak back out.” He looked around the table at us as if the answer were obvious. Hadn’t we all heard the story of the Christmas Spies?

This was something else I wasn’t prepared for. Frankly, it kind of creeped me out. It’s OK for a fat man in a big red suit to squeeze into our house through a chimney hole the width of an orange. It’s OK for his flying reindeer to stand on our roof munching carrots while the sleigh-side GPS lines up the next stop. But spies — undoubtedly dressed in dark clothing with little black beanies on their heads — jimmy-ing our locks and hiding toys in our stockings? Whispering into their high-tech walkie-talkie watches while tiptoeing around our Christmas tree? That’s just weird. Weird and freaky.

I assumed Bergen had his story mixed up, and I was going to turn it back around.

“Do these spies live in the North Pole?” I asked with a mischievous smile. “Do they have pointy ears? Do they like to make toys and sing Christmas carols?”

“No,” said Bergen, looking at me with a fair amount of pity. “They’re not elves. They’re spies.”

Christian, my eight-year-old, stepped in. “Bergen,” he said. “Santa is real. And if you don’t believe in him, you won’t get any presents.”

Christian believes.

But Bergen was undeterred. “Santa is a fairytale,” he implored — willing someone to believe him. “Spies bring us the presents.”

I changed my tactic.

“Who told you this?” I asked, looking for someone to blame. “Did you see it on TV? Did someone at school say this?”

“I didn’t hear it,” he said, grabbing a piece of garlic cheese bread from his plate. “I just know it.” Case closed.

A few hours later, Christian prepared a plate of cookies and a glass of milk for Santa. He held it high, delivering it with pride and anticipation through the wrapping-paper littered living room to its place of honor on the coffee table.

“Do spies like sugar cookies?” I asked Bergen.

“Yah,” he answered. “They’ll eat ‘em.”

I went to bed that night a little sad at the turn of events. I want both of my sons to believe in all the magic of Christmas — of angels and miracles and, yes, of Santa. I want them to have open minds and wild imaginations. I want them to grow up knowing that just maybe, given the right circumstances, the impossible can happen. I want them to believe.
I consoled myself with the thought that at least Bergen had the imagination thing going for him. Still, I fell asleep hoping that Santa would make a return to his Christmas mythology next year.

It turns out I wouldn’t have to wait that long. I woke up the next morning to Christian sitting on the edge of our bed, asking if he could please, PLEASE go get his stocking even though everyone else was asleep.

Bergen, roused from his sleep by our voices, jumped out of bed, ran into the hall and — his face shining like 1,000 Christmas lights — yelled, “Let’s go look in our stockings, Christian! Let’s see if Santa came!”