Santa was seriously injured, but he doesn't have to die

Photo from koikoikoi.com

Author's note: This contains my frank feelings about some Christmas traditions and will shatter the illusion for some younger readers. Parents be advised.

Our kids have stopped believing in Santa.

I told my daughter that if she stopped believing, he'd stop coming. Amelia didn't like that. Neither did my daughter. She has the Malibu Dream House on her list this year.

It was probably harsh of me. I was trying to joke about it. It's not like Christmas is canceled. But my point to them—that was missed—was when you stop believing in the Tooth Fairy, you're out a few bucks. When you stop believing in Tinkerbell, she can't fly. When you stop believing in Santa, Christmas Eve is a little less magical. Christmas morning is a little less anticipated. The Christmas spirit is just a little less bright. So, I tried to smile and laugh it off and then I went into my bedroom and cried.

I didn't always have such a pro-Santa agenda. When I was single, I had this idea that when I got married and started having kids, I'd never perpetuate the existence of a real Santa. I thought that maybe, if I read the myths and traditions surrounding Santa leading up to the holiday, made it clear they were legends, and then left a few gifts from "him," that Christmas could always be focused more on family and Jesus. My kids would know from the beginning that he was a part of Christmas tradition but not Christmas itself. But I married a woman with two kids who already believed and I wasn't about to stop that. I've never been logically sold on the idea of lying to my kids about a mythological man shaped by department store and Coca-Cola marketing. In our home, we've never used the jolly old elf as a bargaining chip, a behavior monitor, or threat. When there have been little questions, we've been vague. When the questions got specific like, "Are you Santa?" they have gotten the truth. So it's never been this huge dedication to the guy.

Here's a question: When we perpetuate this myth, what stops kids from reasoning that, perhaps, the other kind, gentle, loving Man they've also never seen is fiction? They both take the exercising of faith yet one turns out to be mom and dad. There's not a lot of physical evidence of God. For kids, at least Santa drank milk and ate cookies. One thing that helps is the The Spirt and, thankfully, that can be powerful.

So, is it better to not start the myth or is it good for them to practice this belief in someone they can't see so they can do it for other things? How should I have approached the Santa Let Down of 2013?

Someone shared this on Facebook and it intrigued me. Martha Brockenbrough wrote it for her daughter and it later appeared in the New York Times. Here are a few excerpts and you can read it in full here.

"I am the person who fills your stockings with presents ... the presents under the tree, the same way my mom did for me, and the same way her mom did for her. (And yes, Daddy helps, too.)

I imagine you will someday do this for your children, and I know you will love seeing them run down the Christmas magic stairs on Christmas morning. You will love seeing them sit under the tree, their small faces lit with Christmas lights.

This won’t make you Santa, though.

Santa is bigger than any person, and his work has gone on longer than any of us have lived. What he does is simple, but it is powerful. He teaches children how to have belief in something they can’t see or touch.

It’s a big job, and it’s an important one. Throughout your life, you will need this capacity to believe: in yourself, in your friends, in your talents, and in your family. You’ll also need to believe in things you can’t measure or even hold in your hand. Here, I am talking about love, that great power that will light your life from the inside out, even during its darkest, coldest moments.

Santa is a teacher, and I have been his student, and now you know the secret of how he gets down all those chimneys on Christmas Eve: he has help from all the people whose hearts he’s filled with joy.

With full hearts, people like Daddy and me take our turns helping Santa do a job that would otherwise be impossible.

So, no, I am not Santa. Santa is love and magic and hope and happiness. I’m on his team, and now you are, too."

I guess that's why I cried a little. I didn't want hope and happiness and magic to leave our home during Christmas. But it doesn't have to. It won't. It will still be in our Christ-centered activities. In how we treat people. In how we give to each other. And I bet, just maybe, there could be a little magic in our daughter's eyes when she drowsily, yet exitedly, opens that ...

And The Eyes Have It!

Happy Holiday's everyone!  So because Thanksgiving was so super late, now Christmas is in, like, three weeks.  Blam-O!

So I wanted to take these next three weeks and bless you with Holiday Figures from around the world. Not everyone believes in Santa Clause and that is not because they are non believers, but it's because they believe in far scarier things then a jolly cherub who loves all children and gives them gifts if they are good and warmth giving coal if they are bad...I mean if you are a cold kid, you might as well invest in a coal burning stove and then live it up all year long.

This week we are going to learn about...Bum Ba Ba BUM...

SAINT LUCIA!!!

One of the girls at my work is from Northern Italy and she had the audacity to tell me that Santa Clause is ridiculous and only a fool would believe in him.  I then asked her who she believed in and she introduced me to Santa Lucia...A lovely woman who gouged out her eyes so that no man would see them and fall in love with their beauty.  Also, she creeps into your room on the night of the 13th of December and leaves you small gifts.  Also, she keeps her eyes on a plate, like in this picture here:

Or, I guess sometimes she grows them on a plant, like this picture here:

Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good crazy religion, Heaven (literally) knows, but if I'm laying in my bed one December night and two eyes come slowly up outside my second story window...I'm not real in to whatever gift those eyes on a plate are giving me.

But the girl at my work was.  She said, every year should would pray to Saint Lucia and say, 'Please come to my house and please leave me presents, but please do not let me see your eyeless face.'  Which is not entirely correct as Saint Lucia does get her eyes...or, I guess another set of them when she is martyred because she wouldn't give an offering to the Roman Emperor...cause she had give all she had to God, and so they said she would be the offering and they went to drag her from her mothers house and they could not move her, even after hooking her up to some Oxen.  So they called a guy and had him come to the house and burn her...but she wouldn't burn and so they stabbed her...which, I guess took.  I mean, I could be wrong, but when you done lit someone on fire and they give you that, "really?"look, don't you quietly douce the flames and slowly back out the door?!  I mean, OXEN couldn't budge this lady and your gonna just stab her?!  I'm sure it was a surprise to everyone when that worked. 

Anyway, now she travels all night long and you are suppose to put food and water in the corner of your room for her and then some more water and straw for her donkey and then get yourself to bed...uh, cause she's a comin'!  and everyone knows that if you are a wake when she comes she won't leave you presents...and she has no eyes!

I hope you learned something here, and we hope you learn something new everyday here at Part Time Authors, a multicultural melding pot of fascinating facts!  

Here are more pictures:

A Very Traditional Christmas

"Something old, something red, something borrowed, something dead," as Krampus, St. Nicholas' holiday devil, famously said. What that phrase I just made up now means is that holidays are steeped in tradition. For most of us, Christmastime is when we dust off winter traditions we loved as kids and continue to build them within our families and/or we try to create new ones that we hope will catch on.

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When I was growing up, my mom and dad tried very hard to make Christmas different from other times of the year. Much of the time we were either lower-middle class or poor but that never seemed to matter. It was magical.

The decorations would go up (some handmade the year or five before), the egg nog and wassail would flow freely, and the kitchen smelled at various times of ham, turkey, spices, rolls, cocoa, sugar cookies, homemade mints, caramels, and pecan logs.

We always had music playing and I remember especially loving Andy Williams, MoTab, Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole, and John Denver and the Muppets. Each year we'd mark the calendar, much like my contemporary Ken Craig, so as not to miss any stop-motion or traditionally animated holiday special. My favorite? "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."

We often went caroling, sledding, and visiting Grandma's house during the holidays and one of my favorite Christmases was when we took boxes of food, blankets, and other supplies and gave them to homeless people.

On Christmas Eve, we were allowed to open one present, not including the less exciting traditional new pajamas gift. In our home, we had 4-7 kids at various times – there was always a baby to play Jesus –  so this night was when my dad would read Luke 2 and Mark something while we dressed in robes and towels to portray the remaining roles of Mary, Joseph, Wise Men, and Shepherds. Christmas Eve at our house always felt calm yet tinged with excitement. We would eat, watch movies or specials, play board games, put ginger bread houses together, and continue working on some 5,000,000 piece puzzle. There was always a puzzle being built. My little brother Jared was the king of puzzles, even at the earliest age. I was good at finding the edges.

Christmas morning, when we were finally allowed to stop pretending we were asleep, my mom would turn on the twinkling lights, put on Bing Crosby, and we'd all line up at the top of the stairs or in the hall according to age, youngest first. My parents were masters of the Ty Pennington reveal, creating suspense, joy, anxiety, and glee with one or two well-timed grins. As we'd enter the main room of the home, screams of delight would fill the home as we'd find the part of the sofa or recliner where our stockings were pinned, marking also where Santa had left each child's gifts. We never tore into our gifts at this point. We always went around in a circle, one gift at a time, so that we could share in the awe of each sibling's haul. Doing this made the morning last and, by the time we were done, the tough choice of which toy to free from its plastic prison faced each of us. We were never poor on Christmas.

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Today, I have a wife and two kids. Our time together during the holidays is mostly filled with trying to figure out how we can do as little as possible and get more couch togetherness time. It's what we like to do. We're pretty good at it year round but we do have our traditions too.

We still cook at Christmas (Amelia is fantastic at it) but we don't really do the homemade candy part. We "try" to eat healthy-ish treats (and by that I mean packages of peanut M&Ms). We love egg nog and cocoa time. We often have a "pickin' ham" which, once we've used it for the main dish, we cover in the fridge and pick at it to make sandwiches or ... just eat a drive-by handful.

Amelia and the kids usually decorate the tree after school one day while I'm at work and I think they like it. This year we got our first fresh tree as a family, tied it on the roof, and brought it home without incident. Our home smelled like what I imagine Narnia would smell like – crisp, clean, fresh, piney, and British – for at least a week.

Music is still a big part of Christmas for us, and thankfully, my kids love the John Denver/Muppets album as much as Amelia and I did/do. It might come from our iPhone speaker set via Spotify but it still infuses our home with holiday cheer. "It's a Wonderful Life," "Miracle on 42nd Street," and animated shows we remember to DVR are regularly viewed. We also love to go to the theater to see as many movies as we can during the break, something we could never do as a family when I was young.

We serve others given the opportunity and get wonderful drop in visits from our dear friends and near strangers. We'll take cookies around from time to time as well. We'll build snowmen, have snowball fights, and go sledding from time to time but not every year. I'm ok with it.

On Christmas Eve, the kids open new pajamas and my dad usually drops by with their gifts, watches them open them, and has some cheese and crackers. That night or sometime the next afternoon we get visits from other family in the area. Our home is sort of the gathering place at Christmas.

I always read Luke 2 and Mark something while but we haven't done the role-playing part. The kids simply listen as they cuddle their mother. Christmas Eve at our house is calm yet filled with anticipation. We eat, watch movies or specials, play board games, and work on some 5,000,000,000 piece puzzle. Amelia and the kids are brilliant at puzzles. I am good at finding the edges.

Christmas morning, I turn on the twinkling lights, put on Bing Crosby and we line up the two excited munchkins in the hall. We try to master the Ty Pennington reveal but the truth is I'm just as excited as they are. As we enter the main room of the home, gasps of happy breath escape and fill our home as they find the part of the sofa or chair where the stockings were hung. Our daughter always checks to see if Santa has eaten the milk and cookies and if he's left a thank you note. He always does but he only leaves a few gifts for the kids. (The best ones come labeled "From Mom and Dad.") We never tear into our presents. We go in a circle, one gift at a time, so that we can share in the experience of giving and receiving. Doing this makes the morning last. I never want it to end. I hope our kids feel it too and I hope they find some tradition like these they enjoy enough to try and pass on.

We've been blessed in recent years so money at Christmas hasn't been the issue I imagine it was for my parents. But, I don't think it ever would be. Our love for each other, the Spirit in our home, and our traditions make it feel special to me. We'll never be poor on Christmas.

Happy holidays.