Santa Dilemma?
Is your child asking if Santa is real?
Are they giving clues to potential doubt about Santa’s true existence?
Are they of the age that you’d rather them learn from you about Santa rather than the kids at school?
Our Story
The Christmas season has always been special in our household. As a family, we start decorating our home the weekend before Thanksgiving. Listening to holiday music and enjoying the festivities for as many weeks as possible. Our son really enjoys being able to help in all aspects of the holiday planning and fun. He always looked for the elf we willed to existence each year, he adored finding the reindeer tracks in our Florida front yard and always took great pleasure in seeing which of the cookies Santa enjoyed the most.
So, at ten, when he started asking questions about how Santa can really know about all the kids and where they live or why one friend said they no longer believed, I knew it was going to be important to address the Santa dilemma with a proper send off. Hence, the story that has become the Christmas Key came to me. Rolled into a scroll with a jeweled key, Santa’s farewell was sticking out of my son’s stocking Christmas morning. In our home, we always get to open the stocking first while we wait for Dad to wake up or for the coffee to finish brewing. He opened it and was lost in importance of this secret letter from Saint Nick himself.
After he was through, I came back into the living room and asked what he had been reading and he leaned back against the sofa, doing the mind blown action with his hands above his head. He looked at me and said, “this is something I am going to have to keep forever to share with my son one day.” It was a natural goodbye from Santa and having the secret and knowledge in his possession, my son exuded confidence that he was responsible for helping preserve the magic.
That evening at the annual Christmas dinner we host, he was quick to play with the little kids who were visiting and asking them all about what they got from Santa earlier that day. I couldn’t have been prouder or felt more validated in helping preserve the enchantment of Christmas. As a result, it feels really rewarding that this scroll, full of wisdom through rhyme, can help keep the wonderment alive for children for generations to come as they transition from the receivers to the gift givers.