How can we keep the meaning of Christmas alive? Elisha Krauss and Kelly Maher are BACK for a sweet and hilarious episode you won’t want to miss!
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I love hearing baby babbling in the background of LadyBrains. I have a 2.5 year old grandson, and a 4 month old granddaughter, so I relate to the children of y’all that are the same ages.
From my childhood, we lived in Italy for a year when I was 7 – 8 years old. As Americans we celebrated Christmas gift giving on Christmas Day. But the Italian custom was to exchange gifts on Epiphany. So we got a second round of gifts on Epiphany!
When I was 4 years old we lived in The Netherlands at Christmas (my father on occasion found visiting professorship positions outside the United States). The local custom was a more historical St. Nicholas, which my parents tell me terrified me who had been raised with the jolly American version of Santa Claus.
In adulthood, our Christmas trees were “dynamically decorated” as our children would move ornaments around on the tree as the whim struck them on different days. We had very few breakable ornaments We put the breakable ornaments up high. Many of the ornaments were ones the children made at preschool or at church. The tree was as much for the children as it was us, so if they wanted to move ornaments around, that was fine with us, even if the ornaments ended up very unevenly distributed.
A favorite family activity was the frequent hunt for a stuffed dove that our cat enjoyed batting off the tree and sending skidding down the hall on the wood floor.
I definitely believe Santa Claus should be a part of Christmas for a child, even when they grow up and realize Santa is not real. Or is he?
Santa Claus is real. Young children grow up knowing Santa loves to bring gifts to them on Christmas. As they get older, they’ll (hopefully) incorporate Santa’s joy in giving into their own character.
So whether it’s Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy, I don’t think there’s any harm indulging childhood fantasy with traditional figures. All three of our daughters eventually figured out fat men can’t fit down chimneys, rabbits hop on all fours and don’t carry baskets, and the Tooth Fairy bears a striking resemblence to Mom or Dad. Maybe realizing Santa et al. aren’t real is a way of telling parents their children are starting to think critically (something culled from their brains in college these days).
As for when they ask that dreaded question, “Is Santa real?”, I’ll tell you a short story:
One Christmas long ago, when oldest daughter was 10 (maybe 11), she started to show signs of questioning Santa’s existence. She asked my wife, “Is Santa real?”
My wife answered, “Well, do you believe he is?”
Oldest daughter thought for a moment, then replied, “Yes, as long as he keeps bringing me good stuff.”
Yep, he still does . . .