Break a Leg

So Christmas has come and gone, and it's hard for me to even imagine the time when it was "just around the corner".

At home I'm afloat on a sea of ribbon, wrapping paper, and Tinker Toys in a livingroom that looks like Santa's workshop exploded. I feel like I was drugged on December 23rd and just came out of a coma, to find that someone with apparently twelve children has moved into my apartment.

Months ago, before we had even really started shopping or making lists, I asked my wife what she thought about the whole Santa Claus thing.

Our son was only two last Christmas and really didn't know what the hell was going on. We brought a tree into the house for some damned reason and put wrapped boxes underneath. This year he's three and definitely knows the score: loot is coming. If you see something, you ask for it for Christmas, doesn't matter what it is. I think somewhere amongst all the toys and games and goodies he asked for a rake for Christmas.

I could be wrong, it might have been a hoe.

So we had to decide: to Santa or not to Santa? As it turns out only I had to decide, Sina had made up her mind. Santa, end of story.

I pretty much knew I would go along with it, but I just couldn't stop thinking about it. Once I had to actually start contributing to the myth I really couldn't let it go.

One day as I told him something about Santa and chimneys and what-the-fuck-ever, it hit me: this is such a crock of bullshit! I mean really, flying reindeer?! How could I lie to him like this?

I actually felt terrible inside, utterly miserable. He believed every ludicrous word that was coming out of my mouth, and the more ridiculous the story got the more he bought into it. It's like what cops sometimes say about suspects, not being able to make up a story so insane? Ronin swallowed the stupid story whole.

I was talking to somebody about this very thing, telling them how awful it is, lying to your children, blah blah blah. They told me about the magic of Christmas and believing magic and all that crap (same line Sina gave me), but then they said something that really hit me.

It was after I had told this person about when I stopped believing in Santa, how nobody told me about him being a sham, I just figured it out on my own. I don't know if it was a gradual build-up of clues or just my grandmother's neighbor handing me a gift one day, saying "Santa brought this to my house by mistake" (I think my exact internal response to that was "How the hell could that happen? Sounds like crap to me.")

Either way, I realized the truth on my own, no direct adult input required. This person I was speaking to said something about how maybe that's what's important about the Santa Claus Coverup: it helps children develop their own sense of incredulity.

This sold me: I want Ronin to be able to tell bullshit from lies, and the best way to do that is to tell one big fat fucking whopper of a bullshit, and let him slowly figure it out.

Wait, did I just say "tell bullshit from lies"? Oh well, you know what I meant.

Happy New Year, everybody!