Ho Ho Ho

When my husband and I started getting serious in the dating process, we made sure we talked about the very important subjects like finances, religion, politics, and having kids. We seemed to be on the same page about the big things and able to compromise on the smaller things, so we thought we were doing pretty well. Monthly budget: check. Have children: check. I stay at home with the children while they are little: check. Raise our children with a spiritual outlook and eventually choose a church that we both feel comfortable in: check. Agree to disagree agreeably on political matters: check.

However, there was one sticking point that brought on quite a bit of discussion. We both felt very strongly about our positions and neither of us wanted to compromise.

We could not agree on Santa Claus. He wanted to do the whole Santa Claus thing but I didn't.

I grew up believing in Santa Claus, and my parents love to remind me every year that I once kept them up all night long because I was absolutely certain that I heard Santa and the reindeer on the roof. I was about 5 or 6 years old, and they kept putting me back to bed and waiting for me to fall asleep so that they could put out the presents, but I was not cooperating. Finally around 6 am I dropped off and they dashed around trying to get the presents and stockings out as fast as they could, hoping that I would stay asleep for a couple hours, but I was up about 30 minutes later!

So if I grew up loving Santa Claus, why did I start questioning the tradition?

I've heard some people say that they felt scarred after learning that Santa Claus wasn't real, but I never felt that way. I wasn't angry at my parents for carrying on the Santa Claus tradition, and I always thought that I would do it with my children, but then somewhere in my early 30s I started questioning the whole Santa Claus thing. Maybe I was jaded by the rampant commercialism that seems ever present at this time of year, or maybe it was visions of my future children turning into materialistic "greedy gimmies."

Fortunately hubs and I were able to compromise and I am OK with our solution. We do not have our children make lists for Santa, and Santa only brings one present for each child. We do set out cookies and milk on a special plate for Santa on Christmas Eve and read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" before going to bed.

At some point our boys will learn that Santa Claus does not really fly around on Christmas delivering presents to children around the world, and we'll explain the whole tradition and it's origins. I hope to have formulated a good answer by then, but in the meantime I've decided to enjoy the excitement with my children while hopefully teaching them that the true spirit of Christmas is in caring for others.

Andrea hopes to have all her Christmas planning and preparations done by December 1, but that isn't likely to happen. She also writes at her cooking blog Andrea's Recipes and her education blog Andrea Meyers.