Lets see if she can tell the difference!

Well, not being confined to 150 charaxters is quite nice! But the need to make this a narrative is strong and therefore must be SQUASHED. See, twitter doesnt have narrative, you just throw it out there in all it’s 150 char glory and that’s that. Narative makes me feel like “who has time for that?” so no narratives allowed!

Ethan knows about Santa.

He blurted out his suspicions one early dec morning at breakfast and i made the mistake of pulling him aside and confirming said suspicions. Sincec then, he has been unbearable where Santa has been concerned. If someone had written a book called, “how to get your kid to quit being an ass about Santa” I WOULD HAVE BOUGHT IT. I wish I had dome it differently, but it was done.

This morning, when he came in to insist that ITS MORNING LETS GO OPEN PRESENTS, i snuggled him in with me and we had a chat. We talked about how we need to respect other prople’s belief. I told him Santa is like a game that kids like to play.

“didn’t you have fun last year when you thought he was real?” i pointed out.

“but he DOESNT EXIST!”

This is pretty much how every conversation had gone so I took a different approach.

“Imaginevif you were playing Risk. It wouldnt be fun if someone came up and told you, “those armies dont exist!” and then threw your game on the ground, would you?”

“But Sant—”

I cut him off since ui knw where it was going.

“Think of it as a secret that only you and the adults know. You dont need to say anything. If Santa is mentioned, you can just look over at me and smile and give me a wink.”

It worked. If only I had given him this talk WEEKS ago, BEFORE he’d gone hollering about santa to every kid that came wihjin reach of the sound of his voice. (can we say busstop?)

Christmas morning was great. Santa did come up. And their was a lot of dmiling andvwinking going on. And hopefully he can use this as a life lesson. He is a great kid and a SMART kid. He figured Santa out by using all the facts at his disposal (he’s even said as much). And i hope when he comes across beliefs others may wishbto push on him, he’ll use all the facts at his disposal, parse the information, and if necessary, just smile and wink to himself while he respects those beliefs.

Please forgive the typos. Ive typed it in on my phone Without any checking, and ill clean it up in the morning.

G’nite, and happy christmas!

(did some narrative after all!)