My siblings and I share a lot of things in common. Parents and pets notwithstanding. My parents were always a blast because they were kids at heart. They loved (and still do love!) Disneyland, Nickelodeon, going to movies, playing pretend, toys – we had a pretty cool childhood up in the boonies of Washington State. On family vacations to Disneyland my parents were awake long before us, prepping for early entry. We were always the first in the park and the last out. I’ve never been more exhausted. I was seven.
Christmas, however, was my parents specialty. They started in October. Every time we were bad, or “naughty”, Mom picked up the phone. Mom always threatened to call Santa on us if we were not behaving. See, she had him on speed dial. All it took was a motion toward the phone when we were arguing over the number of sprinkles on each others sundaes (yes, I counted – there was no way in hell my siblings were going to get more than me and get away with it) and we were quiet, perfect, angelic children.
Don’t get me wrong, somewhere around the age of five, logic took over and we started to question it all. But Mom was good – she had all the answers:
Me: “But mom, how did you get Santa’s phone number?”
Mom: “Every mom is given a list of important phone numbers when their baby is born in the hospital. It has the tooth fairy and Easter Bunny too.”
Me: Shut down.
Every Christmas Eve we had a great family tradition. Church at 3, dinner, and then off to bed. My mom and dad would look at the clocks, realize how late it was and send us into a frenzy! You see, Santa came at night, and if we weren’t asleep he wouldn’t leave us any presents! So we would run through the house, putting on our PJ’s and brushing out teeth – setting out the milk and cookies for Santa – along with a carrot for the reindeer (how 9 reindeer split a single carrot apparently didn’t matter to me at all) and then rushing into bed. We would close our eyes tightly and just pray for sleep so that Santa would come. Seemingly seething with adrenaline I never managed to fall asleep before what felt like an eternity. Only to find out years later that my parents ran around the house changing the clocks so that we all thought it was far later than it actually was. They tricked us into bed to insure themselves a few hours of present wrapping, cocktails, and time without the children. Like I said, they were smart.
So it surprised how with such ease, they were able to ruin it entirely in less than two minutes. For each of us the time came differently. For me, it was second grade. December. Kyle Vanostrand had been ruining my life on a fairly regular basis in Mrs. Layton’s class. First he flushed my milk card down the toilet, then he stole my puppy in my pocket and cut its nose and ears off, then he colored on my sweatshirt and got me benched at recess for tattling. Kid was a douche, and possibly a sociopath in the making. Basically, he told me that Santa wasn’t real. After sobbing in the bathroom for twenty minutes, I decided that I needed to find out for sure if Santa was real or not. I needed to know if my entire childhood was based on lies. So I thought about it. If I asked Mom outright, she would deny, deny, deny. I need to ask Dad. He was by far the weaker of the two. He could not resist my sad puppy eyes. I also needed to trick him into answering me correctly. So one evening, I caught him in a good and silly mood. We were laughing, joking around, and I knew it was time to turn on the cute. I crawled into his lap, looked up at his face while aimlessly playing with the fuzz balls on his sweater, and said in my sweetest, most innocent voice, “Daddy, Santa isn’t real, is he?” My heart raced. He turned to look me in the eyes quickly, and said, “Shhhh. Your sister will hear you.”
My childhood came crashing down around me in two seconds flat.
My sister’s story involves her first communion, an easy bake oven, and a comment between mothers. Needless to say she was not happy to hear that Mom had a really hard time finding the oven that clearly was marked, “From Santa.”
My brother was tormented by his siblings. A year older than we were when we found out, he locked himself in his bedroom for an entire day realizing that the magic that was his childhood was over.
And that, is how my parents ruined Santa.
How did you find out Santa wasn’t real?
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