A Christmas Story

Christmas is almost here and I must say that now that the boys are older it just isn't the same anymore. And speaking of older, Nickolas is 16 and Erik will be 19 in February. Where the hell did the time go?! Oh memories of Christmases past, and I have so many wonderful and funny memories.

Let's see Erik was either in second or third grade right at about the time that kids start hearing the terrible rumors that Santa isn't real. Well Erik thought that he'd put this notion to the test. He asked me point blank one day about Santa's existence and I replied that of course Santa is real. He looked a little skeptical and informed me that parents probably have to tell their kids that even if he isn't real. He further explained to me that since Santa is supposed to bring kids whatever they want for Christmas that he devised a plan to determine whether Santa was real or not by asking Santa for something really, really big. Naturally he didn't want to tell me what it was just in case I was in on some kind of Santa conspiracy, but I managed to find out later that he planned on asking the mall Santa for One Million Dollars! And if he got the money for Christmas then he was going to ignore the Santa naysayers and continue to believe. And if he didn't, then no more believing for him.

A challenge! This was going to be fun, and I devised a plan of my own.

On Christmas morning, Erik received a box filled with a million dollars in cash and a note from Santa!

Okay so the money was actually play money, but I'll have you know there was exactly one million dollars of play money! He was momentarily disappointed that the money wasn't real, but then he read the note from Santa that explained how Santa appreciated Erik's resourcefulness, but he can't really give kids absolutely anything they want, but Santa wanted to make sure that Erik believed that he was real so he gave him the play money. Well Erik was thrilled with his note from Santa even though I think he was a bit skeptical, but as he explained years later he really wanted a reason to continue believing so he was both thrilled and relieved to get the gift.

And once he could no longer continue believing, he was a wonderful big brother and didn't spill the beans to Nickolas so we had a couple extra years of Santa in our house.

Santa hasn't been to our house in years and I kinda miss him. I'll have to wait for the next generation for Santa's return. But until then, despite some eye rolling I'll probably still ask the boys if they hear Santa's sleigh on the roof because I want to believe.

Merry Christmas!