Why I insisted on hanging onto my daughter thinking Santa really exists is beyond me. As she gets older, you can’t ply her with stories about Santa slipping through the window and that the snowy footsteps leading from the window are real.
This year, she asked me point blank, “Look into my eyes and tell me you are not Santa!”
And I did, “I am not Santa.” Well I am not, really.
Putting out the Christmas gifts used to be so easy whe my daughter would go to bed early and I could get her gifts under the tree by 11pm. Not anymore, Christmas Eve, she was awake until midnight. Our apartment is too small to be making a lot of noise so there I was creeping around silent as a mouse hoping she did not catch me in the act. Although, the funny moment was that I hid the big gift under my brother’s bed and could not get it out. To top it off, he was asleep, so there I was trying to move the bed with him on top. Good grief!
I did all the gifts under the tree without the munchkin waking up and headed to bed. Whew!!
Not an hour later, my daughter was up and waking me up. “Santa came, Santa came.”
“Go back to bed, please.” And I thought she did.
I found her hours later, sitting in front of the tree, staring but I went back to sleep.
“Please get up, I can’t wait!!
“What time is it??” I asked in some state of fog.
“It’s 5 o’clock.”
“Wake me at 6.”
“Okay, I will wake you at 5:30!”
And she did, needless to say she tore through the gifts like a bat out of hell.
At the end, she stated matter of factly, “You are Santa, I recognize your handwriting.”
“If you want to believe I am Santa, that’s fine, but I am not a man!”
“Okay, but I am going to still believe in Santa.”
So the legend is over and I for one and happy. This charade needs to have a happy ending but next year, Santa wallet is not big enough to make dreams come true for a tween.
At what age did you stop believing in Santa? And what age did your kids stop believing?
My son is 12 next month and he still believes in Santa. Of course he questions it but I think in his heart he really wants to believe. I tried to print out the tag on his gift this year so that it wouldn’t be my handwriting but I couldn’t get my printer to work so I wrote in script, which I rarely do, and he didn’t seem to notice.My son was up until 4:30 am fortunately I am a night owl so I always outlast him. I too live in NYC so trying to be quiet in our small apartment is always fun. I want him and the 2 below him to believe in Santa for as long as possible. You’re right too you’re not Santa so really it’s not a lie. We are more like Santa’s little helpers. Merry Christmas!
They grow up too soon so I wanted her to believe as long as possible.
I was never taught there was a Santa. Yes we were told about the jolly man dressed in red and white but we were also taught that Mom bought all the gifts that were under that tree. We did not teach our son that there was a Santa, we taught him the same way I was taught. However, he got a little confused about the whole deal once he started school. LOL! But I can honestly say, we never lied to him.
This is a test