Cowboy Zebra

We've had this debate in our house about whether to "do" Santa Claus or not. I grew up knowing the story existed, but not believing Santa was real and brought you toys. Nathan grew up fully believing otherwise. As a kid, I never once wished we did the whole Santa thing. Christmas was terribly exciting without him. As an adult, I just couldn't justify lying to my kid about Santa. Speaking with other adults about the whole Santa thing, there seems to be a general commonality. People who grew up believing Santa can't imagine it any other way, and people who didn't grow up with Santa can't imagine it any other way either and have no regrets. Anyway, last year when we went to the mall to get pictures taken, I took the boys to go see the Santa set up. Ian was pretty intrigued and when I asked him if he wanted to go up to see Santa, he shook his head and clutched my leg. Springtime, Ian brings the Santa thing up. "Mom, why doesn't Santa bring me any presents?" I told him it must be because he didn't ask him for any. This summer he asked, "Is Santa real?" "No, he's pretend, but it's fun to pretend he's real." But then I was corrected. "No, Mom, he IS real. I SAW him. Remember at the mall?" He kept insisting, so I told him he could believe that if he wanted. This November we went back to the mall to get more pictures taken. Ian asked to go see Santa. And this time he marched right up to him with Elliott in tow, and they plopped down on his lap to make their requests. "See Mom? I TOLD you he was real". I asked Ian if he'd asked Santa one of his recurring questions, how does Santa get into the houses without a fireplace? Ian said, "I don't think he'd want me to ask him that." When we went to a restaurant at a mall while in Mobile at Thanksgiving, Ian stopped for a moment and said, "HMmm, I wonder if Santa's here?" He paused for a second, head cocked to the side before realizing this was a totally different mall far away from where he'd had the encounter. He shook his head, "No,this isn't the right mall".
So apparently Santa is coming to our house this year to leave a present under the tree. And when he asks me anything to do about Santa I just say, "Well they say...."