Christmas Eve Musings

Written for December 24, 2009.  

We were sitting on the steps in the main hallway of Annie's Washington abode, watching the 2 little girls play in their fantasy land, when he asked the question.

Not "How does the seed get into the egg, Mom?" Nope, that one was just before the Fullerton exit on Lake Shore Drive in a raging snowstorm on barely plowed roads when we were already 15 minutes late and traffic wasn't moving.

Peacefully watching the girls, the sunshine through the magnificent beveled windows making the prism rainbows we were, I thought, busily counting, out of his 7 year old mouth came "Santa's not really real, is he, Mom?"

He noted my pause, and, ever the Big Cuter, his face took a serious cast as he reassured me: "Don't worry. I won't tell her. She really believes he's real."

What followed was a precise analysis, continent by continent, time zone by time zone, of the why-nots of Santa's voyage. He was quietly demolishing every possible rational explanation for his existence, yet he was still insistent that we not destroy his sister's illusion. "She loves Santa, Mom. I mean really loves him."

I remember the intensity with which he informed me of that fact. It moves me, still. I knew right then that he'd always be there for her, no matter how silly she might be.

She was 10 or 11 when the subject of "when you stopped believing in Santa" became acceptable on-the-way-to-tennis-lessons-car-pool conversation. The Little Cuter said "Of course there's a Santa Claus!" and the case was closed. I never heard anyone mention it again in her presence. No mothers called to ask me if it were true. She never said that anyone teased her about it. She knew it as a fact, and, somehow, within her 4th or 5th grade universe, that made it inviolable.

Was she that powerful amongst her friends that no one dared to defy her? Perhaps. Were they surprised that one of them was still stuck in child-like wonder and struck dumb at the concept? Unlikely. I like to think that Santa himself had something to do with it.

Because what I said to the Big Cuter, after his rationalizations had come to an end, was that his reasoning valid but meaningless. The reality is that Santa is joy and love and family and caring and friends and warmth and giving and thanking and everyone ought to believe in that.  

Christmas is about welcoming a new baby into the world, and, as I told Brenda Starr (and she quoted me in the paper) what's not to like about that?

He bought it then, Little Cuter's teaching it to her kids now, and Honey Bunny will hear about it soon enough.  

from Robert Sabuda's The Night Before Christmas Pop-Up Book

The Nativity is illustrated by Julie Vivas, published by Gulliver Books/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich with text from the King James Bible