IS THERE REALLY A SANTA CLAUS?

Merry Christmas everyone! I wrote this one when my son Alex was six years old and thought I’d share it again.

Last week my six year old son, Alex asked the question I’ve been dreading to hear at Christmas.

“Is there really a Santa Claus?

I couldn’t help but think back to the incident that had me asking that same question.

I was seven years old and it was Christmas Eve. My two sisters and I were sent to bed with the order that we needed to be asleep before Santa arrived. It was the ‘or else’ part that had me nervous, because no matter how hard we tried we couldn’t get to sleep.

When my older sister, Liz decided to become song leader for a round of Christmas carols, it seemed like a good idea, until the bickering started. We couldn’t agree on what Christmas song to sing. None of us knew an entire carol, so halfway through we’d have to fill in the parts we didn’t know with Fa-La-La’s. We were getting annoyed with one another and the discussion was getting pretty heated.

Suddenly we heard a noise up on the roof. We all got quiet and listened to the scuffling, whispering and crinkling of paper.

Santa was on the roof! Or maybe he was in the attic. It didn’t matter where he was, he was on our property!

We began whispering to each other to get to sleep, and hurry, or we’d find out what the ‘or else’ part really meant.

But then Liz looked out the window and whispered, “I see Rudolph’s nose!”

We raced to her side. But no matter how hard I looked I couldn’t see that red shining nose. Not wanting to argue with my older sister, I pretended to see it too. Rudolph’s nose only emphasized the fact that Santa was at our house and we were still awake!

The banging upstairs was getting louder and then we heard a loud CRASH! It sounded like Santa had fallen.

Oh no! What if he was hurt? What if he needed help?

What we heard next came as a surprise to all of us. Santa was cussing! The three of us looked at one another, our eyes wide with shock.

That’s when we heard our Mom tell Santa to be quiet. Oh, my gosh! Now I was in a panic. Santa would never stay at a house where a Mom was telling him to be quiet!

When we heard Santa answer we noticed he sounded a lot like our older brother. Could this be a coincidence? We were beginning to doubt it.

We raced to our bedroom door, calling out to our Mom, “Is that Santa? Is he here?”

Our Mom wasn’t very quick to answer. It seems she had been busy checking out the damage my brother had done when he’d fallen through the ceiling of our linen closet. But when she did finally answer it was to tell us to get back to bed before Santa found out we were still awake.

That was enough to send us all flying back under the covers closing our eyes and pretending we were asleep.

When I think back to that night I wonder if I really wanted her to tell us the truth?

I don’t think so.

So when I looked at my son who was asking me if there really was a Santa Claus I answered the only way I knew how.

“Well…Santa’s magic still works for me.” I smiled as I saw the look of relief come over his face. “I hope it still does for you too.”