Santa Came

For those of you that don't pretend with your children, this was too fun not to share, so please indulge me this once. All my younger years, my parents let us believe in Santa. When we were older we soon figured out that it was them and not a him. Well, I have a little girl with an ENORMOUS imagination and she is a "believer!" Ever since she watched 'Miracle On 34th St." she has been intrigued with Santa. So, this year for the first time ever she wanted to go see him at the Mall and to tell him that she wanted an American Doll for Christmas. We went, she got up on his lap and told him what she wanted, and then with a skeptical look on her face she said, "I thought that you should know, I don't have a chimney and I don't think that you will be able to get into my house." Without skipping a beat, he answered, "Oh, I run into that all the time, but I have a special way of creating a magical chimney through which I enter." That was all it took, she walked away from there with a huge grin on her face and a sparkle in her eye, and she has believed in him ever since. I am sure that this phase will end very soon, she is not easily spoofed. But while she does wonder about it all and thinks that she believes in him, the drama that she puts into it, is what I find so adorable!

Last weekend when we were in Spokane, there was a Santa there and Brook talked about her going up to tell him what she wanted, knowing full well that he and I had alreay taken her. She looked at him with utter disgust and said, "Dad, I am not going to tell 2 Santa's what I want. I don't need 2 American Dolls and they would just get mixed up. I already told Nana's Santa and I know that he is going to get it for me, but if he doesn't I am going to be thankful for whatever he brings me." We went about our shopping and when we came upon another Santa booth at a different Mall she said, "Man, there sure are alot of Santa's aren't there?" We just smiled and went on.

Yesterday, I told Brooklyn that we would be opening our presents tonight and that she would need to go right to bed to get a good nights rest so that she wouldn't be tired for our Christmas. Without skipping a beat, and not even giving any thought to the fact that it is not Christmas Eve, she emphatically declared that, "I need to leave milk, cookies, and a note for Santa." I let her get out a little plate, put cookies on it and told her that I would take care of the milk because I didn't want Brittan to spill it. To bed she went. Brittan ate the cookies, I left her a note thanking her for being so good and I gave it no more thought. This morning as I was going around opening the shades I heard a sniffling sound, I went to see what the problem could be and found Brooklyn with tears streaming down her face saying, "he didn't come." I asked her why she would say that and she responded with, "look at our stockings, they are empty." Opps, I thought that we had covered the fact that we would be opening presents tonight and stockings when we come back from Christmas with my side of the family. As I hugged her, I asked if she had looked to see if there were any new presents under the tree, and if the cookies were still there, away she ran wiping away the tears as fast as she could. The next few minutes were ones that I will never forget, she grabbed the note, looked under it to see if there were cookies and she smiled her huge dimpled smile and said, "he came!" I had used an old Christmas card front and written on the back and she let me know that she "didn't know where he had gotten such beautiful paper and how he had written in red and green." "I thought that I heard bells in the night and that must have been him, I know it was him." I told her that I hadn't heard a thing and she said, "well, that's because you shut your ears off while you slept." She then ran over to the packages letting me know that there were some there that she hadn't seen before, she was so excited! Then the make believe and drama kicked in! She looked out the window and told me that,"she saw a mitten print on the sidewalk," "she just knew that Santa had shared a cookie with Rudolph" and that "a little elf had been in our house with Santa, because he would have needed the help and that same elf would be back to fill our stockings when we decided to open them." It was one very excited and happy little girl that left for school this morning and I am sure that there will be several different stories told to her teacher today. I look forward to having my children open their gifts 'from Santa' tonight, and the smile that is on my face right now is sure to last all day!