Letting Go of Santa Claus

Sometimes I am completely caught off guard by parenting. Telling my daughter Sarah the truth about Santa Claus was one of those times.

At some point, kids start pressing about Santa. "Okay, so is Santa real or not?" and honestly, for awhile, it's so easy to deal with.

"Do you think he's real?"

"Yes."

"Well there's your answer!"

I could go on with lots of examples like that. I didn't outright lie about Santa, I just kind of skirted the issue, successfully, I might add, for some time.

Well, one Tuesday night Sarah and I are doing our normal Tuesday night sushi (back when it was Tuesday Night Sushi and not Monday Night Sushi) and she asks the question.

"Mama? Is Santa Real?"

I start down the same old path of skirting the question, not worried at all. But pretty quickly I realize this is a different conversation and I start to stress a little.

Not...ready...for this.

I do okay for awhile and then she literally says to me the following, which was kind of funny:

"Mama. It's a yes or no question. Is Santa Claus real or not?"

For the record, I had never once considered myself and my feelings in relation to outing Santa Claus. I had always worried about the disappointment she might feel.

I'm trapped. I'm starting to have trouble breathing. I say, "Do you really want to know?"

She says "Yes."

Through tears I tell her "No Santa isn't real!" I'm crying in the restaurant. It's totally ridiculous. She is FINE. Completely fine. She starts questioning me:

"So, that time, my heelies fell off the sleigh, and I got that letter from Santa about it and then the elf delivered them to your office?"

Me, still crying "All me."

Her, quiet for a minute. "Nice work Mama."

So, she's fine, other than the fact I am completely embarrassing her by weeping openly at the sushi counter.

But here is what happened. I saw a piece of her childhood float away right before my very eyes.

A piece she will never, ever get back. And it devastated me. I was a complete wreck about it for weeks. I couldn't even believe how much it upset me. I just wasn't ready for it. I had spent so much time worrying about how she would react that I had just never given my own feelings any thought at all. That's what we do as parents, right?

Of course from there we go on to address all of the various myths, and me, the emotional wreck, am answering her questions. "No, no Easter Bunny." "Tooth Fairy? Not-so-much." I think she was a little relieved about the Easter Bunny. The idea of a giant rabbit in her house always unnerved her a little.

Since that time, these kinds of things have accelerated. It's just what happens, of course. She's growing up. The sweetness of childhood, and my daughter is seriously one of the sweetest children to ever walk the planet, is making way to the craziness of the pre-teen/teenage years slowly, but oh-so-surely. And I only have her, so every experience is a first and a last.

But one more thought. While I was so very emotional about the Santa Claus thing, being so emotional kind of felt, well, good. I was never emotional about anything before I was a parent. And I like to embrace those powerful feelings with all that I've got because it just feels like living. We're human and we get to feel like that, and it's cool.