The Carrot of Truth

Christmas Eve is a daunting day when you're a parent.

In this city, people have organized carol singing that goes from pub to pub on the days before Christmas. I kind of liked that idea and had planned to go. It seems vaguely medieval, but I don't know why. But with Husband not working right now, I've had to take on more contracts, which swallows time. So does parenting. Maybe next year.

My kids are 7 and 9. They stopped believing in Santa last year. Now, I'd just like to point out that we never went in for the Santa thing. But the kids picked it up at daycare, etc., so we just didn't do or say anything to upset their ideas. I guess that's a kind of passive lying, but you've got to meet your culture halfway sometimes.

Last year, my then-6-year-old pragmatic daughter decided the Santa story didn't add up. So she and her brother devised a test, which they called the Carrot of Truth. They would leave out a carrot for the reindeer. If the carrot was eaten in the morning, then Santa was real. If not, then the story was bogus.

I didn't have the heart to tell them that Husband and I could easily take a chomp out of that carrot.

However, in the light of honesty, we did not do so. The kids saw the carrot intact in the morning and triumphantly waved it in our faces. Oh, they'd caught us, hadn't they! And they promptly ran off to trill their truth to all their friends, who still all believed in Santa.

And then I got it from their parents.

I still got it from them this year. Some gently took me aside while we were walking the kids to school to ask if we could muzzle them on the topic, just so they could "get another year out of Santa" for their kids. I mean, these kids are almost 10. In a moment of spleen, I wanted to say, "How mutton-headed do you have to be to believe in Santa when you are ten?!" or "I learned about Santa at school when I was six. This is how it happens!" Instead, I said, "This will require duct tape."

My daughter has since become an atheist. She's not believing anything she can't see, and she just pats me nicely on the head if I try to talk to her about such things. I sent her to a local church's vacation bible school. She said it wouldn't have been too bad if they didn't talk about God all the time. My son, on the other hand, thinks he's more of an agnostic: after all, you can't really know either way, he says.

These things I accept. Someone once said that being a communist at 21 just showed that you had a heart that worked. I guess being an atheist/agnostic at age 7/9 just shows you have a mind that works.

The tree went up four days ago, not too early so that things don't lose their shine. The kids love talking about every decoration (since they made most of them) as they touch them all and put them up.

We only buy them one present (like, one: they have to share). That's been our Christmas M.O. since they were born. They have begged for a GameBoy for years now. Mom, I'm the only kid in the class that doesn't have one. I held off as long as possible, but this year, that's what they get.

Sometimes you have to meet your culture halfway.

Filling the stockings is something that Husband and I do immediately after the kids fall asleep, which is about 30 seconds after their heads hit the pillows. This year, I badly miscalculated. Stocking stuffers will overstuff said stockings rather badly. I picked up odds and sods at second-hand stores, plus miscellaneous art and office supplies, some homemade treats and coupons, socks, mitts, a chocolate orange, too much for their knit hockey-sock stockings. Husband's socks may be called into service this year. I hope they don't stretch too badly.

These are our traditions. My children grow. They're growing so fast now I can hardly stand to watch. I remember how they used to crawl into our bed in the morning with their ice-cold feet, giggling and snuggling against us.

Not any more.

Some days I just want to stop time so that I can enjoy this moment, this day, this period in their lives until I've had my fill of it. But it passes so quickly.

We'll put out the carrot again tonight.