Skip to main content

A true believer

By Jess
Some folks are here looking at the chimney, since some pieces of the clay lining fell down earlier this year. By the time Alex joined us, the chimney folks had gone outside to look at the chimney. Leo was standing, holding on to my fingers, so I was a little distracted and don't know exactly how he phrased it. Alex: Where are they?
Me: They had to go outside to look in the chimney.
Alex: They're INSIDE the chimney?!
Me: No, no, just looking inside. Not inside like Santa Claus.
Alex: Santa Claus is just pretend, isn't he?
Me (without realizing the turn in the conversation): Yes.
Alex, laughing: He's just made up. Santa Claus isn't real.
After a moment of what-have-I-done horror, I'm actually quite relieved. Then we talked about the real reason for Christmas.
Clarification:

No, there was no trauma -- on either of our parts.

Honestly, we don't talk very much about Santa Claus except for his part in books and movies, so it was a little awkward at Christmastime when folks kept asking if he was excited about Santa. It wasn't something that we took care to cultivate at home.

Any oh-my-goodness-he's-only-3-and-doesn't-believe-in-Santa was a knee-jerk response on my part to the cultural pressure of the Santa myth and -- although I have avoided the Santa question entirely -- it still felt like an important childhood rite of passage had just occurred, almost without my knowledge.

What a relief! Paul suggested that we'll see what he remembers come Christmastime, but I'm a pretty terrible lier so I hope we can put it all in perspective and enjoy Santa without having to carry on the charade. Alex is a bright boy who came to his own realization about the fantastic elements of his story, so I'm proud of him for figuring it out.

I just hope he doesn't ruin it for the rest of his friends!

Comments

Paul Gestwicki said…
It's especially funny since we've never even really talked about Santa Claus with him. Wasn't last year his first Santa experience at all?
3:10 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Masterful Manipulations: Short Story Homeschool Co-op Class

By Jess
I taught a class on iconic short stories this spring at our homeschool co-op. I don't know how many of my former English teachers may have passed since, but any that have are rolling in their graves at this news. I find teaching especially stressful but this class exceeded my expectations in basically every way and that might have made it worthwhile. We read 20 short stories, which I was free to choose primarily on the basis of how much I liked them. I organized them based on loose associations. Table of Contents (We never officially read this, but it was so short, I included it in case I needed to read it aloud during that first class.) One Summer Night , by Ambrose Bierce Short Story Elements To Build a Fire , by Jack London Irony The Necklace , by Guy de Maupassant The Gift of the Magi , by O. Henry The Ransom of Red Chief , by O. Henry Irony - American The Veldt , by Ray Bradbury The Lottery , by Shirley Jackson Setting - Irony - Foreign The Sniper , by Liam O'Flah...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lazy Saturday

By Jess
I took a three-hour nap this afternoon (no fooling) to make up for my restless sleep last night. It put a big hole in the day, but I'm feeling much better now and I'll be better prepared to lose another hour of sleep tonight. Tomorrow will be the first ever observation of Eastern Daylight Savings Time in Indiana. They've been warning residents of the imminent clock-setting for roughly three weeks on the radio -- and I only listen to the radio while I'm driving around town. Although we'll miss the convenience of Central Time's TV schedule, we're glad we won't have to play "What time is it in Indiana?" with our families for another summer. Come to think of it, we don't have cable anymore, anyway, so the TV schedule will hardly affect us. It seemed the local broadcast channels were on "Indiana time" last year. The day didn't go quite as planned. We had been invited to our yoga instructor's home for an afternoon of "jammi...
4 comments
Read more

Another month passes me by

By Jess
To quickly recap: We enjoyed a late-October weekend in St. Louis, accidentally arriving during the 8th inning of the Cardinals' World Series Winning Game. At the Ballpark Hilton. One block from the stadium. It was a night -- and very early morning -- to remember. We visited the zoo, Union Station, the Arch, the Botanical Gardens (to see the Chihuly exhibit), and I don't remember where else. Great city, good times. The furnace installation was completed on November 4th, and we've been toasty warm ever since. On November 15th, I hosted (with the immense help of three friends) 20 at the Ladies' Gourmet dinner. "Cranberries" were the theme ingredient. Everything was delicious. I was exhausted. The afternoon before leaving for St. Louis, I taped three half-hour shows for the Health Department, which I then had to scramble to assemble and deliver by November 17th. Of course, nothing ever goes smoothly over at the studio, so it took three times as long as planned ...
Post a Comment
Read more