To Santa or Not To Santa
I sit here this morning having a chat with a relative about Christmas shopping and I think about my plans for Christmas this year and it got my mind spinning and I just have to write about it. Last year, my daughter who was 4 at the time asked me if Santa was real. This is something I struggled to answer. Do I keep the magic alive and say yes? Do I tell her the truth and say no?
I believed and was told about Santa when I was little. I put cookies out for his reindeer and eagerly waited up Christmas Eve night thinking every little sound I heard might be Santa on my roof. One year, I went into my parent’s closet for some reason and stumbled upon the motherload of presents that “Santa” would bring to me. They were even labelled From Santa on them. I was old enough to just roll my eyes and think wow there really is no Santa.
Since growing up and having my own kids and seeing the way the world is now, I am really thinking I do not want my kids to believe in Santa. Here is my reasoning.... Christmas is a time for spending time with family and making new traditions. My most treasured memories from Christmas as a child was making Christmas cookies, hanging and decorating stockings and the tree, making popcorn balls that were red and green to hand out to family on Christmas Day, and seeing all of my family the day of Christmas.
We have turned it into a holiday of greed, where we have to immediately start planning and saving money right after the New Year to buy presents for the following year. We obsess over the newest and most expensive gadgets. Black Friday has turned into a week long excursion starting Thanksgiving night and going into Cyber Monday and Tuesday.
I dread the thought of Christmas anymore because we are by no means well off with money and we struggle to buy our kids extra presents by that time of year. I see all of the posts on Christmas from other families and feel the jealousy well up inside of me that I cannot provide living rooms full of presents for my children and I realized something.
I want my children to know that it is Mommy and Daddy who provide the presents on Christmas. I want them to know and understand how hard we work to give them extra things. I don’t want them to believe that these gifts have just magically appeared by some being they will never see. I want them to understand that spending time together and having traditions is the ultimate joy. I want them to see any present they receive as a true gift and treasure it always. So to me, I have chose Not to Santa.