Samantha Bee Large

Samantha Bee

Eating Over The Sink

Santa Makes Me Queasy

When I was pregnant with my first child, I confidently assured every one of my friends and family that I would never, under any circumstances, foist the Santa myth on my children. I had never believed in Santa myself, my grandmother having busted that whole thing wide open from birth, and I really never felt like I had missed out on anything much.

Then that baby came out of my body, and in an instant, I became Santa’s Personal Cheerleader, overall bringer of holiday magic and enthusiastic sprinkler of fairy dust.  But it didn’t last long. And now that my eldest child is almost six, and we have established a tradition of honesty and frank talk, all this Santa business is giving me the upper-lip sweats. I try to keep it light, but when she talks about Santa, my blurry, slightly non-committal responses are so obviously false that I sometimes have to leave the room and let my husband take over. It’s the kind of reaction normally reserved for when a person’s child asks them where babies come from for the first time, except that didn’t even cause me to bat an eyelash.

I can’t wait for her to ask the one question that I so desperately want her to ask. “Is Santa really real?” That NO is going to come out of my mouth so fast that it’s going to reverse time for up to thirteen full seconds.

Also: we never take the kids to sit on any mall Santa’s lap. Worst. Tradition. Ever. We did it once and the stress of forcing my child to sit on some random bearded stranger’s lap almost killed me. Never again.