Santa

This morning I did photos for the Breakfast with Santa get together for Daddy's work. It was basically painless. Not a ton of screaming whining children and it ran pretty smoothly. But it really makes me think about Santa and the reasons that we are celebrating Christmas. As a child, My aunt and uncle "did" Santa for my older sister and I until we were about 9 and 10. We used to sleep in the living room anticipating Santa, staying up as late as possible to see if we'd see him coming into the house to bring us our toys. I specifically remember laying in the floor in our home in northern VA, staring at the brown curtains with zig-zag patterns on them wondering when Santa would make his appearance. In the morning when we awoke at the crack of dawn, we'd find a black garbage bag full of toys for us. Our aunt and uncle never gave us anything separate from them. Everything was from "Santa". He'd even eat the cookies that we left out for him. It wasn't until we were in our new home in Fredericksburg that I was old enough to pull off the all-nighter and see my uncle in his tighty-whities sneaking downstairs to place the gifts under the tree. I laid there playing opossum quietly and semi-shocked that my uncle was actually Santa, solidifying my questions all those years. Daddy's parents began his life with Santa. But after a few years went by, they stopped and so Daddy and his siblings grew up spoiling Santa for their family and friends. When Daddy and I first discussed it, we decided rather quickly not to "do" Santa. It was a simple decision for us. We didn't want to take the focus away from Jesus Christ and place it onto Santa and gifts and the children themselves... and I'm certainly not going to LIE to my children about some fictional character who breaks into our house and leaves them toys. Friends of mine with older children are really torn about what to do about "coming out" about Santa now that their kids are older. If they find out at school, they could argue with the other kids only to find out their side of the argument is wrong and be completely embarrassed that they actually believed their parents for so long, and mad at the parents for lying all those years. Anyway, it's completely a parent's choice whether they want to lie to their kids about the big jolly man in the red suit or not, and I won't spoil the tale for those who do, but we aren't on the bandwagon. =)

**edited to add a side note: for all of you Santa "doers" out there who read my blog, I hope not to offend you, but instead, shed some light on the subject. It is rather disheartening here with all of the Buddhists and Christmas truly being centered around Santa and gifts. I would never think poorly of any of you for choosing to do or not to do Santa, as it is traditional in most homes. Please don't be upset with me if Monkey calls Santa "Satan Claus" in front of your children.