"You're a LIAR!" I shouted to my mother when the truth finally came out. A dirty, rotten liar... That's how I felt when my Christmas dreams were shattered. When it came time to reveal the stinking realism to Hayden, we tried not to break his heart. Somehow, it seemed so much easier if we could just get him to sneak up on the truth on his own.We started with the tooth fairy. We asked Hayden to tell us what he thought about her and how it works... You know, hauling teeth around all night long. His response was, "Well, she's magic! She's very little, leaves me notes under my pillow, and she LOVES teeth." Wayne and I exchanged knowing glances, which quickly degenerated to raucous laughter. "Well," Wayne said, "She's little all right... And she does love teeth..." At which point Hayden's expression flashed understanding, and he pointed to me and said, "IT'S YOOOOUUU!!!"
We worked our way through the Easter Bunny, Leprechauns, etc. before we got to the Big Guy. With each debunking of his favorite magical characters, he would say, "But Santa is real! I KNOW he is, because he eats the cookies we leave for him, and the reindeer eat all the carrots!" But when he realized Daddy was the cookie culprit, he shed a tear or two.
At least we weren't considered dirty, rotten liars.
12 comments:
BRILLIANT. You are so on to something here. For today, Elijah believes...and that is fine with me.
It is difficult to shatter some children's innocent belief in "magic". Some kids are never really convinced and figure it out by themselves. Others, like Haydee Bo, and my brother Scott, hate the truth of it and take it real hard. Sounds like you weren't too pleased either. Yikes!
I felt suddenly enlightened and realized it made very good sense. At the same time I understood why parents would want to "pretend" for the children. I wasn't disappointed. I was greatful to my sweet parents. It was the end of my wide-eyed innocence though. Everything is too 'real' after you know.
You guys did it very well. What a brave thing to do, shatter all your child's "fairly tales" in one fell swoop!
I can totally see you as the Tooth Fairy :)
yah, we still let out kids believe in santa. haven't met the tooth fairy yet, no loss of teeth yet. so we'll see how long it takes?
I have yet to get to this with my kids, and I must admit that I'm a bit afraid to!! I came to it on my own at TWELVE, so I see no reason for things to be different for my own kids!! =D
I read a friends experience about learning the truth, and she said that her parents had her help be Santa that year. She said she was kinda bummed when she didn't see any presents for herself that night, but pleasantly surprised the next morning.
and can I copy that picture? I love it!
So YOU'RE the tooth fairy? Makes sense.
I'm the one that broke the news to Angie. I thought she might embarass herself if she kept on talking about hearing reigndeer paws on our roof at ten years old. Her response, "But Mommy wouldn't lie to us!"
I am the Great Disillusioner.
Ooo... I like your idea of starting off small with the tooth fairy and up through Easter Bunny etc. etc. You two are brilliant!
WW,
Sure you can use the picture. I pilfered it from my sister-in-law's blog.
Hayden and Nathan take turns each Christmas (now that they're both in on the secret) stuffing the stockings on Christmas Eve. That seemed to work out to be a decent appeasement when I was a kid, and the boys both like it too.
My 8 year old son looked at me this year and said, "Mom, I know who Santa is...." I responded, "Oh yeah?". With a smug looked he retorted, "YOU".
My dreams were crushed, not his. I told him if he told his sister I'd kick his little fanny-bannany...
No really, I told him if he kept our secret, he could be my "elf". I'm just realizing I don't really know what his elf duties will be... maybe stuffing stockings, like you've so brilliantly posted about! :)
I started doubting the existence of Santa when he forgot to include batteries with my musical Rudolph toy one year. I thought to myself, "This is something my MOM would've done, not SANTA! Wait a minute..." but I still wanted to believe. Then Diana came along and crushed the magic permanantly. It's a good thing she did too, or this post would have been devastating...
Reading your post makes me wonder if I should encourage any believe in Santa at all. It was certainly save a lot of explaining later on. Oh what to do?
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