Diary of a SubUrban Housewife

It's Imminent

I'm Jewish. The first time I celebrated Christmas I was 12. We went to the home of my father's then-girlfriend's (who later became his wife and then ex-wife) parents. They had a tree. We got presents.

But I was 12. I was clear on where the presents came from.

So the whole Santa thing was a non-issue for me.

We celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah here.

As for Hanukkah, we light the menorah each night, say the brucha, Zoe opens a present my mother has sent, and we eat potato latkes at least once.

As for Christmas, we have a tree, on Christmas morning we all open presents, and we eat too much. There is nothing religious about our celebration. But there is Santa. Santa brings Zoe presents.

We take Zoe to see Santa each year. She sits on Santa's lap and tells him what she wants. OK, this year Zoe e-mailed Santa her list. But you get the point. Santa is inolved. Zoe believes in Santa.

But Zoe is in third grade now. I know that the Santa thing is going to come to an end soon. Not from us. But from the other kids. The kids in the upper grades or maybe a classmate. I've been thinking about it. Kind of dreading it. And quite frankly, have no clue how to deal with it, having never gone through it myself. I figured we had until next year, or maybe the year after that.

Well, the other night as we were driving home from dinner "it" came up. From the back seat comes the question, "Is Santa real?"

There was silence in the front seat, but only for a moment. Chuck stepped up in a really big way. He handled the situation like a champ.

He asked Zoe what she meant. She informed us that one of the kids in her class said that Santa is not real. Chuck asked her what she thought. Zoe said she still believes. Chuck told her that if she believes then Santa is real. Then there was a discussion about the fact that she knows that some of her gifts come from us. He explained that yes, some gifts come from mommy and daddy, but that Santa brings gifts too. This seemed to satisfy her.

I know I would have stepped up in some manner but I'm very glad I didn't have to.

Santa was there for me.

Posted by beth at December 21, 2003 01:26 PM