This doesn’t just get a spoiler alert. It gets THE spoiler alert. If you’re under 10 years old and want to keep getting presents from Santa at Christmas, stop reading now.
Now, for the jaded remainder, and to my children should they one day read this, allow me to make a confession: I am a liar.
I’ve gone to great lengths, in fact, to perpetuate one particular lie. Cookies have been eaten. Milk has been drunk. Notes have been answered. Tortured explanations have been created, and false history repeatedly revised.
It’s not like I haven’t had help with the lying—as soon as you become a parent, you also become a member of an elaborate conspiracy. Falsehoods within falsehoods. This lie is so detailed, so thoroughly woven into the fabric of a young person’s world, that the explosion of it could rival those moments in The Matrix when an awestruck Neo learns that he’s living in a computer-generated illusion.
In the quest to not disappoint on Christmas Day, I’ve tracked down all sorts of toy requests, including out-of-production Lego sets on eBay, an act that unintentionally supported the idea that anything can be produced as a reward for good behavior. I can’t fault my kids for figuring that, based on this assumption, it makes sense to ask for that rare thousand-dollar Lego Star Wars Cloud City set…because Santa can just make it, right? Those 3-D printer demonstrations at Staples don’t help matters, either—surely if people can create 3-D selfies and paperweights of any kind, Santa can easily make toys on demand?
I explained to my kids that sometimes it’s easier for Santa to get hold of stuff that’s readily available in stores, or better yet, on Amazon.com, so the North Pole crew doesn’t have to bother with crowded parking lots and long check-out lines. This led to questions about Santa’s finances, and I quickly assured them of his solvency, before retreating to the bathroom to avoid further interrogation.
A red-suited fat man with an equally fat bankroll makes me think of a pimp, but maybe that just goes to show how much my own innocence has been spoiled. Meanwhile, the lies are mounting, and each one makes backing out that much worse. Maybe this is what Nixon felt like during Watergate.
We’ve had close calls with old TV shows, though I was quick enough on the remote to avoid showing Ricky Ricardo placing presents under the tree on the I Love Lucy Christmas Special. On an episode of What’s Happening!!, sharp-tongued Dee resists spending Christmas Eve at a friend’s house, and Rerun theorizes that maybe she just wants to be home when Santa comes. All I had to hear were the first two words out of her mouth —“Say what?!”—before the DVD mysteriously skipped.
This is CIA-level secrecy, maybe better. But I wasn’t made for the CIA, and the stress of helping Santa is getting to me. As I see it, the inevitable revelation can go one of two ways: “You mean it was YOU all those years? Wow, you’re the best!” Or: “You mean, you were LYING to me all this time? Wow, you’re the WORST!”
My guess is that even when their words offer acceptance, there’s a part of kids that’s pretty shaken up. For some children, The Revelation is the first time they’ll realize that things aren’t always what they appear to be.
Is it a matter of preserving their innocence, or just avoiding the uncomfortable admission of our complicity? Or is it about extending the length of time they’ll actually believe stuff we tell them? Those teenage years are fast approaching, after all, during which everything we as parents say or do will be wrong, if not an outright lie.
Whatever the reason, it looks like my kids will spend at least one more Christmas believing—or figuring, a la Blaise Pascal, that it’s not worth the risk of NOT believing—in Santa Claus. I might drop a hint or two and see if they figure it out themselves, but I’m sure as heck not going to tell them. Along with countless other parents, I’ve concluded that a little dishonesty and guilt is a fair trade-off for well-behaved kids and another year of life with Santa Claus.
Peter Dabbene’s website is peterdabbene.com, and his previous Hamilton Post columns can be read at mercerspace.com. Three new poems can be read at pyrokinection.com/2015/11/three-poems-by-peter-dabbene.html. A reading of his Christmas story ”The Theft of the Magi” is part of a charity Christmas CD benefiting the Manny L. Friedman Foundation, which raises funds for no-kill animal shelters. It can be ordered or downloaded at WolvertonMedia.com.
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