Last year's Santa debacle

I wrote a blog in my sleep this morning, (I "write" so many in my mind the middle of the night while attending to Henry!) regarding some interesting Christmas related items. However, looking back I see that I never documented the big Santa fiasco from last year. So to tell my story, I have to tell this story!

Lucy's "first Christmas" (when she was 2 1/2), we put an unwrapped Kai-lan DVD in her stocking. I'm not sure how much we even talked about Santa. But on Christmas morning, she ran downstairs, and by the time we got down there, she was hugging her DVD, beaming from ear to ear, joyfully declaring that Santa had brought her most favorite movie!! She was so easy to please! I took it for granted that the whole Santa thing could run so smoothly!

Last year, Lucy would walk around stores and say she wanted things, so I would say "That's a good thing to put on your Christmas list". I'm still not sure if I made too big a deal about Santa, but he's everywhere! In our books, Dora videos, even billboards. So we never debunked him, but went along with whatever she seemed to observe about him. I knew that there was once particular Disney princess sing-a-long DVD that she consistently asked for when we passed by it at the store. I didn't approve of those Disney love songs at her age,so I over-rode her "wish list" and got her a Disney princess snowflake shirt, and a Fairy Christmas DVD, both from Santa. On Christmas Eve, after I put Henry to bed, Tim informed me that Lucy just wrote a letter to Santa, and they "mailed" it. On it was of course a Princess DVD. Oh dear. The next morning, I woke up to absolute tears. She had excitedly looked in her stocking, and much to her disappointment, there was no Princess DVD. I almost started crying. It was not a greedy selfish cry. She was truly disappointed (and probably confused) that Santa had not brought what she asked for. I was sad for her, I was mad at myself, I was upset that she seemed greedy....lots of emotions! Somehow we got thru that episode...paused for breakfast, and went back to enjoy the rest of our Christmas Day. She was very thankful for all of her presents from everyone, and truly enjoyed the opening and cherishing each gift. However she carried her disappointment with her all day. A few times she mentioned her surprise and sadness that Santa had not gotten her what she asked.

So Tim and I felt at a crossroads. Do we "out" the whole Santa "truth"? Do we try and explain it away (nothing was working in my attempted explanations and re-directing)? We still have years of Santa for Henry ahead...what's our stand? So like 2 crazy first time parents, we made a plan. We typed up a letter in Santa font, basically saying he heard how sad and disappointed she was, and she had been a very good girl. He looked in his sleigh when he got home, and found the DVD in the bottom of his sack. So he sent Elfie (her Elf on the Shelf) back with this gift, hoping this would make her feel better. Then Tim went to Fred Meyer at 7am, bought the DVD (thank God it was still there), then tucked that and Elfie and the letter into her stocking. It took hours before she noticed Elfie, but finally with coaxing, she found the DVD and the letter. We made a very big deal about how this was VERY UNIQUE and we never heard of Santa doing this!! I know, you think we're ridiculous. We ARE! But it had to be done. She was so excited, she watched it several times over the first few weeks, but then like all "favorite things", it has gone to the bottom of the pile. I don't regret our choice to "redeem" Santa. It has helped us in our teaching about expectations, and disappointments. (btw, the princess snowflake shirt was a BIG HIT, and she wore it twice a week the entire year!)

It makes Tim and I giggle to think of what hair-brained ideas we are capable of, and how many more of them we have up our sleeves in the future!!