Don’t Hide the Santa Wrap Under the Bed!

Soooo….here is some parenting advice.  Don’t Leave The Santa Wrap Under The Bed.

I ruined Santa for my seven year old this year.  I mean, that sounds pretty dramatic, but there’s a big part of my mom heart that wants to kick myself.  Ultimately, I’m going to give myself grace because I’m a human, and I pull off Christmas all by myself, but it’s kind of funny to me that my daughter and I shared a one room cottage for 6 years and I managed to keep Santa real until we moved into a house with 1200 sq. feet of indoor space and 3 bedrooms….sigh.

A few weeks before the holiday season when I began to move around stuff in the “studio” to finish the paint job I started last spring during lockdown, Ayla noticed some wrapping paper sticking out of the open closet.

“Mom?”

“What hon?”

“Isn’t that Santa’s wrapping paper?  What is it doing in our closet?  Why do you have Santa’s paper?”

Internal panic-oh sh**! Why did I leave that out??

“Oh honey, Santa is magic!  He has all kinds of paper!” swift change of subject….

Whew!

Best Mom Ever

She dropped the subject and we had a wonderful Christmas.  In the first week of December, we got our first living tree!  I was determined to take her to a tree farm to cut our own tree, despite having spasmed my back while doing yoga a few weeks before Thanksgiving (I know, yoga is supposed to be great for you, not hurt you, but what can I say?  It was a bad day).  So I put a ton of Papa & Barkley’s Releaf Balm on my back, plus a Mary’s Medicinals THCa transdermal patch, and we struck out to the local tree farm.  Not too hard and lots of fun. It turns out farmed Christmas trees don’t have very thick trunks!

We baked cookies, wrapped presents for friends, made ornaments, and I stayed up until 2am wrapping her gifts a full two nights before Christmas Eve!  I was PREPARED!  I even relaxed on Christmas Eve after we hosted a sweet little dinner with our closest friends.  

Christmas Day was perfect!  We woke up at a reasonable hour, and Ayla opened up her stocking, delighted with everything she got.  Then, as agreed, I got my cup of coffee with eggnog in it and sat down with my iPhone camera to take photos and videos of her opening her gifts.  All the countless hours it takes to find just the right gifts and wrap them and they get ripped open so fast!  

Breakfast was fried eggs, bacon and for me a corn quesadilla with microbiome slaw and some other tasties from the night before.

She spent all day playing with her new Pound Puppy Bo-Bo, her original Strawberry Shortcake (you know the one: it smells like yummy fake strawberries!!) and her Palomino foal Buttercup.  She loved all her presents so much and was so happy!  Later we made popcorn, watched Christmas movies and snuggled. 

Worst Mom Ever

I felt like the best mom ever.  Which isn’t that common for me because I often feel challenged by solo-momming.  

So I was really shocked when I heard my baby sobbing and talking to herself in the bathroom.  

She had gotten out of bed to go after she had been all tucked in.  

When she came out I said, “What’s wrong Ayla?  I heard you crying in the bathroom?  Did you have a bad dream?”

“No Mommy, I’m okay”

“No baby, you’re not okay.  What’s wrong?  Come here.”  I sat her down on my lap and put my arms around her.

“I didn’t want to say anything because I thought you would be upset with me.”  she sobbed.

“Baby, you can tell me anything.  I won’t be upset, I promise.  What’s wrong?”

Then it all came pouring out of her in sobs. 

“I was in your room and I dropped the piece of cardboard that I was making as a tag for Bo-Bo, and I got down on the floor to look for it and I found it under your bed.  And I didn’t mean to Mommy, I wasn’t looking for anything or trying to be nosy, but I saw the wrapping paper that Santa’s presents were wrapped in under the bed.”  she started sobbing again. 

My Heart Sunk 

No no no sh**, PLEASE no! She needs Santa. 

It’s been such a hard year.  And we had just recently found out that our dearest and closest friends are moving to Costa Rica in March.  I really messed up.

Not feeling ready to have a big talk with her so late at night, I started asking questions.  

“What do you think it means honey?”

“I don’t know.” she sniffled miserably.  “I want Santa to be real”

“Maybe a naughty elf snuck it under there to throw you off or trick you or test your belief.”-Yes, I really said friends. I was grasping at straws…

She laughed a little.  “Really?”

“I don’t know.  I didn’t see it under there….or maybe…Santa wrapped the presents here last night and left me the extra wrapping paper under the bed.”

I don’t like this at all…

“Maybe”

“Did you have a good Christmas?”

“Yes”

“Did it feel magical?”

“Yes..”

“Do you think that Santa is the only magical part of Christmas?”

“No….”

“See? Christmas magic is more than just Santa-it’s about the spirit of giving and spending time with family.  Why don’t we talk about it tomorrow, okay?  You need to get some rest and sleep on it and we will talk more tomorrow.”

“I am really tired”

“I know baby.  Come on, I’ll tuck you in”

I took her hand, walked with her to her room, and gave her a million kisses. 

“I love you Ayla.  Thank you for making my Christmas bright and magical.”

“I love you so much Mama.”

My heart squeezed.  I knew she wouldn’t believe in Santa forever, but I thought I would have another year at the very least.  And I wasn’t any more ready than she was.  

Ok, So Now What?

I spent another hour googling stuff like “my seven year old found the Santa wrap” and “what is the average age that kids find out about Santa?”  and “How do I tell my kid that Santa isn’t real?”

And in the process, I learned that the average age that a kid stops believing in Santa is eight (really???). So she’s a year ahead, she’s so smart!  And I read things like, “don’t wrap the Santa gifts,” (Ummm…too late for THAT now) and some helpful tips on how to make the truth easier when it happens.  Also, it turns out that lots of kids find out by finding the Santa paper or realizing that Santa has the same handwriting as their parents….I was always so careful!!!

After educating myself on Google, I decided on a plan.  I decided that my daughter was going to determine the next steps. If she wanted to know, I decided that I would tell her the truth, as much as I didn’t want to.  

The Moment of Truth

The next morning after breakfast, she asked again.  “Mommy, is Santa real?  Tell me the truth.”

I took a deep breath.  My mommy-heart breaking, I swallowed my sadness, smiled and said, “Yes, honey, Santa IS real, it’s just that he’s more of an idea of the spirit of giving than a real, live magical being.”  

I explained to her all about St. Nicholas, who was a very real person that partially inspired today’s tradition of Santa Claus because of his own acts of kindness towards others.  And I highlighted that the tradition of Santa Claus was all about the spirit of giving.   I also confirmed for her that the Magic Santa Claus that she believed in was in fact, a story, and that I was her Santa, for the most part.  She was not pleased with this information.  

“So all along, it was you getting me those gifts?”

“Yes, honey”

The Society of Secret Santas

And then, this is my favorite part.  Inspired by another woman’s post on FB about how she helps her kids transition from believing in Santa in a non-traumatizing way, I decided to put my own spin on her idea.  Here is the Huff Post article I found that references the post I originally saw if you would like to see it. I probably didn’t do it as gracefully as the post described, but that’s ok. This is how I did it:

With a BIG smile on my face, I said, “Ayla, I am SO proud of you!  You’ve graduated and you’re ready to be a part of the Society of Secret Santas!”  

“What do you mean?”  she said, looking confused.

And then I told her that because she was so smart and figured out the secret, that she was now old enough and ready to be a part of the Society of Secret Santas, and that SHE gets to be Santa.  And because she is now a secret keeper, she has two very special jobs.  

Here’s How it Works

The first part of her job is that she now gets to choose someone to be Santa for each year.  It can be someone that she wants to give a gift to, or even better, someone that she notices could really use some extra love or help.   It’s her job to secretly observe that person and find a gift that would really uplift that person without telling them.  

The second part of her job is to keep the secret for the little ones to preserve the magic.   She cannot tell anyone about the Secret Society unless it’s confirmed they are also part of it!  

We had recently watched a whole bunch of holiday movies and shows, some of which featured older kids blowing the whistle on Santa (of course, the movies were all about how Santa IS real, so they were proven wrong…).  I reminded her of an episode of Punky Brewster (yes, the original 80s series!!) we watched with that theme, and I asked her.  “Would you want to be that older kid who ruined it for the others?”  She looked at me horrified and said, “NO!”  

And then, I initiated her into the Secret Society with a Secret Handshake that we created.  I’m not sure exactly how this part happened, but I think it was her favorite part and helped her feel better any time she was feeling particularly sad about the news.  We did that handshake probably 20 times that day and regularly for the next few weeks.  Actually, we just did it again tonight. It’s a pretty silly handshake, friends, and we giggle quite a bit every time we do it!! 

Three Months Later

And here’s the thing.  Three months later, she is less sad.  But it’s taken a while for her and lots of follow up conversations to feel okay.  She was honestly pretty sad for a few weeks.  And she still talks about it. I feel pretty awful because I really wanted her to have that magic for a little while longer, especially as we are grappling with so much change, uncertainty and loss during these times.  But I do think I did the best I could under the circumstances.  I also think that as she chooses someone to be Santa for and gets to experience the joy of giving and bringing someone else magic, that the sting will eventually lessen and that she will be able to experience the magic of Christmas from a different perspective.  

The moral of the story is: don’t hide your Santa Wrap under the bed.  Or maybe just don’t wrap the Santa presents at all…

Tooth Fairies and… Chipmunks?

“Mom?”

“Yes, Ayla?”

“So what’s the deal with the Tooth Fairy?  Tell me the Truth.”

Nope, not doing this right now.

“Do you like having the Tooth Fairy visit you and bring you money for your teeth?”

“Yes”

“Is it fun for you?”

“Yes”

“Well, you have to believe in the Tooth Fairy in order to get a visit.  If you enjoy getting visits from the Tooth Fairy, I suggest you just let it go and enjoy the fun.”

“Okay Mom.” she dropped it, but a few days later, she says, “Mom, I pretty much figured out the Tooth Fairy wasn’t real when I didn’t get a chipmunk for my lost tooth in Montana.”

Ummm…okay. That’s something you hear every day, right? Do you see the expression on that Chipmunk’s face on the photo above? Yup, you got it: my face when she said that.

But Tooth-Fairies and chipmunks are another story…

Basically the jig is up.  And we haven’t covered The Easter Bunny yet…but Easter is only a few days away so stay tuned.

Note: I spent so many hours googling ways to handle the situation, that it’s kind of a blur where I got all my ideas from, but I did learn that there is a real Society of Secret Santas, a few books (that I haven’t read), and a wealth of resources with ideas about how to help your kids transition when they don’t believe anymore.  I’ll update with some links soon!

And please, DON’T hide the Santa wrap under the bed like I did. If it’s there, go move it as soon as your kids are asleep! Or BURN it when they aren’t looking. I’m sort of kidding and nope, I’m not salty about it at all.

Live well friends,

Z