The night before breakfast with Santa, my 5-year-old daughter asked, “Are we going to see the real Santa?”
“Yes,” I lied, like the Grinch to Cindy Lou Who before stuffing the Christmas tree up the chimney.
I’m uncomfortable with the Santa charade. I don’t recall believing in Santa as a child. My mother said she never wanted to lie to us kids. It was her way of sidestepping recriminations she knew would follow. “Santa isn’t real? You lied to me!” Before a family gathering, she once warned that so-and-so still believed in Santa – my cue not to let the Christmas kitten out of the bag. I played along, helpfully asking my younger cousin how Santa could bring his presents if their house didn’t have a chimney. Yes, I got coal in my stocking that year.
In 1897, 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to The New York Sun: “Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. … Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?”
Editor Francis P. Church’s now famous reply included the line: “Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age.”
A century later, we have grown more skeptical, though better informed. Websites feature Santa blogs and podcasts. You can watch an animated Santa disco dancing, tour the reindeer barn, or track Santa’s journey across the sky courtesy of NORAD. An online survey asks, “Do you believe in Santa?” followed by questions like, “What items would you like to see Santa provide for sale to parents?” It’s enough to turn junior skeptics into cynics. Another website explains Santa’s workshop is sinking due to global warming. (I’ve added an energy-efficient washer and dryer to my Christmas list this year.)
Our breakfast with Santa took place in a rustic Grand Lake restaurant where I could easily picture St. Nicholas tucking into a Christmas goose. After the kids gulped down their French toast and sausage, we lined up to visit an authentic-looking Santa holding court in the next room.
As the boy on Santa’s lap asked for a cellphone, I thought about the hand-wringing over electronic toys and gizmos in vogue these days. In Virginia’s time, parents worried children didn’t believe in Santa, now we worry that interactive gadgets rob kids of imagination. I’ve watched children play with a wooden marble run while the latest computerized toy gathers dust. (Might help if Mom replaced the batteries.) Thanks to commercials, video games, the Internet – even school lunch programs – kids are being marketed to in a way no generation has ever been before. Marketers say kids are “aging out” of toys at younger ages. Children are growing up faster.
Forget Santa; it’s childhood we no longer believe in.
Soon my kids were scrambling onto Santa’s lap as I blinded the jolly old elf with my camera flash. When Santa asked if they had been good, both kids nodded like angels. I think Santa’s list of naughty and nice was conceived by harried parents in the grocery store checkout line. Around Thanksgiving, I overheard a father telling his kids, “Be good because Santa is watching!” and made a mental note to apply this useful parenting tactic the next time the kids were fighting and I needed to restore peace on Earth (or at least peace in the minivan). Nothing like a little Christmas blackmail to put everyone in a festive mood.
After saying goodbye to Santa, the kids started working on Christmas-themed coloring pages courtesy of the local real estate agency, which thoughtfully included a phone number in case the tots were “in the market.” I recalled Lucy in the Peanuts Christmas TV special lamenting that she never got what she really wanted for Christmas – real estate. Smart girl.
A few days later, we were in Denver searching for the three-story Barbie dream house. (Sold out everywhere, but available on eBay at an incredibly inflated price.) I boycotted the Bratz house where the dolls look like vapid video vixens who party all night in a Malibu mansion and don’t recycle. When I explained the Barbie house wasn’t available, my daughter answered, “That’s OK. Santa can get it for me.” If only.
So yes, Jayden and Henry, there is a Santa Claus. I hope you believe in him for some time to come. We live in a skeptical age, in uncertain times. I hope children still listen for jingle bells and reindeer on rooftops … and text-message their wish lists to Santa.
Gretchen Bergen is a freelance writer.
