Video Killed the Radio Star

I was driving along yesterday afternoon after picking up my daughter from school and a song came along with explicit lyrics. Now, truthfully, this doesn't bother me, but more and more my children are really listening to what is I consider just background noise. So, as a dutiful mother (and to avoid some terrible incident at church or grandma's house) I flipped to another station and heard Bing Crosby singing his famous Christmas tune. Now, we have not yet hit Thanksgiving this year so I listened further to see if this was an isolated Christmas song, or if more were to follow. I listened for the entire drive home and low and behold, the station was playing All Christmas, All The Time! I guess I don't mind this so much, but was still surprised that even before the big turkey day this would happen.

Anyway, this brings me to the topic of Santa and Christmas. My children are naturally excited for Christmas, and since the concept of time is beyond them they don't really understand just how far away Christmas actually is. So, I've been telling them (repeatedly) that Christmas is the holiday after Thanksgiving. I'm afraid this may backfire on me, because my older daughter keeps telling me that after we have turkey then Santa will come!


Knowing that Santa is at the top of my daughter's mind, I thought I could use this to my favor, and a couple of days ago when she was not behaving as nicely as I knew she could, I mentioned that Santa might be watching so it would be a good idea for her to behave. Well, she looked at me slyly, almost with the glimmer of a teenager, and said, "Mom, Santa is just pretend." I calmly explained that Santa was indeed real and that Christmas is a magical time when anything can happen. Inside I was SHOCKED! My precious baby, my little four-year-old was saying and thinking things that I was thinking was assuming were years away. Now, in her defense, she may have said it just to defend her naughty behavior--she's a very smart manipulator and if she can excuse herself of any wrong doing she will find a way. But, I am determined that she believe, not necessarily in Santa, but in the magic of Christmas, and I want her to experience the same hope and joy that I did knowing that Christmas was coming. So my goal this year will to make her and her sister's Christmas magical--even if she doubts that Santa is real.