Pretend
Early yesterday morning, I snuck into Gemma-Rose’s bedroom.
“What are you doing, Mum?” A sleepy voice from the bed.
As I fumbled in the dark for a pair of shoes, I whispered, “Nothing! Go back to sleep.”
When my daughter got up, she discovered St Nicholas had filled her shoes with gold-wrapped chocolates.
Santa never visited our kids while they were growing up. I had no big spiritual or moral reasons for not perpetuating the Santa myth. I was just too lazy to organise everything and pretend.
But I did leave chocolates in my kids’ shoes on St Nicholas’ Eve (or early the next morning if I’d forgotten). Maybe my younger kids believed the real St Nick visited them each year. My older ones didn’t, but they loved pretending. Even as adults, they like to join in the fun.
Yesterday morning, when my husband opened the front door to go to work, he discovered a black boot filled with chocolates. My daughters, Imogen and Charlotte, found a similar boot outside their house. (Our boot belonged on a left foot; theirs was meant for a right one.) When my son Duncan came to dinner last night, and I mentioned the boots, he hid a grin behind his hand.
Are we lying to our kids when we let them believe Santa or St Nicholas leaves gifts for them? Or are we engaging in the essential practice of pretence? Are we adding magic to our kids’ lives? Are we showing them there’s a reality beyond this world?
Believing in jolly men in red suits who fly gift-filled, reindeer-drawn sleighs around the world lifts our kids beyond our perceived reality. It opens their minds and hearts to the possibility of miracles. Perhaps it prepares them for the greatest miracle of all:
On a bright star-filled night, in a humble stable, God was born into our world as a tiny baby.
Once in the world, a stable had something bigger than our whole world.
- CS Lewis
Some adults find this difficult to believe, but not kids. Kids know the world is miraculous. Unless, of course, no one encouraged them to pretend.
Photos: salt dough Christmas tree angels