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14 December 2009

To Tell or Not To Tell

...and so begins the Holiday Season, stores become transformed into Holiday Wonder-Shopping-Lands and the center of the Mall becomes a child's magical toy fantasy! Who wouldn't want to believe in the Magical Guy (aka Santa Clause) after seeing all that? Not to mention the stories...

Over the last month or so, I've been trying to get out of the kids their most wanted desire to have under the tree on Christmas morning. Of course the 3-year old wants everything she sees, so I have to remind her what it is she really wants (and what I already have for her). Now she's saying it regularly and wants to go back and remind Santa. E has changed her mind a few times too, so I waited to make sure she had decided. Then I found the perfect basic art easel that will give her hours of drawing pleasure and yards of paper. Luckily she's sticking with that for now. She may need a gentle reminder, too, though. :)

Now, J, our 10 year old son, as far as I can tell, still wants to believe...but I think he may be catching on. The other night the children were looking at the presents under the tree, finding theirs, rearranging...then began a verbal Christmas Wish List from J and E. I didn't want them to get their hopes too high, so I jumped in. "Listen, guys. It's been a rough year for everyone with money and jobs. Santa will only be giving each child one gift, and with so many children in the world, let's not be greedy, okay?" I was hoping that would be a good enough excuse to move their thoughts to other things...

J looks confused at me, "I thought Santa's bag was magic."

Who wants cookies!!

2 comments:

Kimi said...

Ahhh we had this discussion this weekend. It ended with me telling all. And then saying next year (since they are with their dad this year) we will be making giving the focus of our Christmas. Oddly my boys 6 and 7 weren't really upset at all about the Santa news. Totally a relief.

TeresaL said...

Good luck with that one... I'm hoping we still have a few more years to believe. :)