The Great Santa Debate
Spoiler alert. You may want to skip this blog post if you’re, like, 12.
So, Santa Claus doesn’t exist. (“Wait, whuah?” Dude, I told you “Spoiler alert.”) I’ve always known this because I grew up in an apartment in LA and we didn’t have a chimney. Come to think of it, I don’t think any of the other neighborhood kids believed in Santa either.
But now I’ve got a kid of my own and I’m trying to decide whether or not to do the whole Santa thing with him. On the one hand, it’s generally good policy not to lie to your kids. On the other hand, I don’t want him growing up like me.
See, my dad was a pretty literal guy and my mom is from Japan, where they don’t really have things like sarcasm. So I grew up kinda not getting certain social cues. For example, I was super gullible. Also, I had a hard time understanding humor, although I was obsessed with it. I’d spend hours pouring over the Sunday comics trying to figure out what was funny. (Mary Worth was particularly challenging.)
So I’m wondering if maybe lying to Dyson about Santa Claus and then having him figure it out on his own is just part of the growing up process. But if I’m going down that path, I think I’ll just go all the way and tell him that we’re descended from Elves.
December 20th, 2011 at 8:29 pm
http://www.cozi.com/live-simply/truth-about-santa
December 20th, 2011 at 8:38 pm
Aww … that’s a touching letter.