Mr. Fox and I are blessed with a child who is more childlike than our firstborn who learned about Santa when she was 6 by sneaking into our closet and finding the "Santa paper" we use to wrap Santa gifts. She didn't tell us until she was 10 but when she knew for sure that Santa wasn't actually living in the North Pole it was a tough day. But now Thirteen, who is a precious, fanciful child has crashed into reality with an offhand, unguarded, unintentional comment made by one of her parents. To protect the identity of that parent who is devastated I'll just leave it at that. It could have happened to either of us.
But happen it did and our sensitive, ethereal girl had her heart broken to pieces just a week away from Christmas. Oh, the weeping. I'm exhausted. We all cried. Her big sister crawled into bed with her and held her and rocked her and did her best to soothe her shock and upset.
When my firstborn wrote me a letter that said "Is Santa real? Please tell me the truth." I turned to my keyboard because I think best with my fingers. How could I solve this? I had deep misgivings when we had babies about bringing Santa into their lives for this very reason. Mr. Fox and I fought over it. I had not been allowed to believe in Santa because my mother said she could not lie to me after Stephanie (my sister) took it hard. My mother said she felt it was just wrong after that.
But I always envied my Santa-believing friends. So when Mr. Fox was all in on the Santa game and would not stop arguing for it, I thought "why not?" Mr. Fox always felt like he missed out because his 2nd-grade teacher ruined it for the whole class. There were a lot of angry parents in 1982 after Mrs. Scrooge pulled that fiasco.
What I decided to do was write to my daughter as St. Nicholas and try to explain this cultural phenomenon in as honest a way I could without ruining the magic. The letter was such a hit that she surprised me today as she was holding her weeping sister by saying, "I want to get the letter." She still has it.
And so she found it and I read it to Thirteen, choking on my own tears. If any of you have this problem crop up, feel free to use it. The following is a letter to a child who is losing her faith from St. Nicholas.
