Worlds Crashing Down: A Hard Life Lesson

It's taken a couple of weeks for me to write about what happened with Sarah recently.  One evening, apropos of nothing, she came to us and asked about Santa.

Mary and I have always said that when the kids ask a direct question and say they want to know, we won't lie, we'll tell them.  And with David, it's been remarkably easy: he's edged towards directly asking, but always pulls away.  "You know, Daddy, some kids say there's no Santa Claus," is a typical approach he'll make.  "And what do you think?" we'll ask.  "Oh, I believe," is the invariable reply of our nearly 12-year-old.

But what do you do with, "Is there really a Santa Claus? Or do you buy the presents that come from Santa and put them under the tree?"  "What do you think, honey?" I said, trying the usual dodge that worked so well on her brother.  "I want to know the truth."  "Well, do you really want to know?" "Yes, I do!  Tell me!"

If you're us, you gulp hard, you look at each other, and you go down a road you hoped you'd never have to go down.

This started with Sarah looking at a postcard one evening that she'd received from Santa some years back; it showed him relaxing on the beach, presumably after the busy season.  Her comment was that it just didn't look right, it didn't look like Santa, and that it didn't seem real.  Which led to the harder questions, supra.

We confessed that there is no single old man in a red suit who visits every house in a single night, and that yes, we do buy the presents that come from him and put them under the tree.  We said that Santa is a spirit of giving that never goes away, that he represents the love of children, and Mary added a few other well-expressed words to show what he meant.

Sarah, of course, started to cry.  She began to plead with us to "take it back," but unfortunately, once said, that's not something that can be taken back.

We felt absolutely, utterly awful.  What kind of parents are we, yanking away a trasured childhood icon from a nine-year-old?  In a world that forces children to grow up oh so fast, have we surrendered too early?  Should we have evaded, dodged, indeed lied once more, given her another season of magic, before the world snatches away innocence?  Or were we better off being honest, leveling with her, despite the tears and the disillusionment, by respecting her maturity and the way she pressed for honesty from her parents, whom she has (up until now) trusted as icons of truth?

That night we also let the veil slip for David, who was also saddened, but didn't cry.  And then I read to the kids (mostly David, as Sarah wasn't in the mood for much of the story) the Berkeley Breathed story, Red Ranger Came Calling.  In it, a sour little boy who doubts Santa has an experience he'll never forget, complete with photographic proof that the spirit of giving exists.  I've always loved that book, and that night I cried my eyes out too, saddened mostly by the loss of innocence that sharing the story meant, but also from a still-lingering, 40-year-old sense of wanting to believe, wanting it still to be true, that I just couldn't put into words that horrible night.

The topic hasn't come up again in the last few weeks.  It probably won't until some awkward days late in the year, when decorations start coming up and cherished traditions, such as the cookies on the plate and checking the Norad radar for Santa, start to lose their immediate meaning.  It will be a sadder Christmas in our house this year, just from this loss.  All we can do is hope we made the right choices as worlds of innocence came crashing down this spring.