Christmas – the season of giving and lying

The Santa Story

I remember the earliest days of my childhood when Santa Claus was just about the most relevant and well-liked man I had never, ever met.

Once a year in December, my brother and I would look forward to staying up late on Christmas Eve in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of Mr. Claus himself.

We would imagine Mr. Claus parking on our fifth storey balcony while Rudolf and his mates graze on Mum’s precious potted plants. Mr. Claus would then tiptoe into our house while everyone had fallen asleep and deposit our presents at the foot of our beds.

Alas, no matter how hard we tried we couldn’t keep our eyes open past 2am each year and the both of us would be fast asleep.

Santa Claus must have been feeling pretty smug about it all – I remember thinking. Parking an entire herd of reindeer anywhere he pleased with no risk of a parking ticket. Just how did he go about doing it, year after year!

The first third of my life, mornings of December 25th marked another incredibly joyful occasion for yet another innocent child.

Santa Claus could you sign here please?

I think I must have been about twelve when I decided once and for all, Mr. Claus must shake my hand and sign my autograph book. I remember pretending to fall asleep after my entire family had drank a little too much eggnog and wine. I had Huey Lewis & The News playing in my Walkman so I thought I looked pretty respectable, as a music fan should Mr. Claus ever question my music taste.

To my horror, out of the corner of my eye I spied a familiar silhouette open the door to our room ever so gently. The dim light from the lounge shone from behind but he was unmistakably cradling some large objects in his hand. He then walked calmly to our beds and placed a box at the foot of our beds each.

Santa Claus was, I mean, is Dad! Mr. Claus is Dad! Hang on, what?

Should you be telling your children this Christmas fib? Keep reading!

Christmas Guilt

Children around the world are exposed to the wonderful warmth of Christmas since young. Along with Santa Claus, Christmas carols, presents, putting up and decorating the Christmas tree with fake snow complete the picture perfect Christmas post card for your loved ones.

As parents, we too, are often seduced by the commercialism of Christmas and spend time educating our little ones about Christmas.

This, inevitably means, plenty of stories about overworked elves (“They work around the clock!”), the North Pole (“It’s a massive factory housing presents for billions of children!”), reindeers with remarkable timekeeping (“Santa gave out presents overnight across all the time zones!”) And, possibly the most bizarre of them all, Santa Claus never getting stuck in chimneys – despite being a rather rotund fellow (“Santa has the keys to our house as we don’t have a chimney!”).

For some strange reason I felt incredibly guilty for betraying both Dad and myself. I had known immediately Santa Claus didn’t exist, because if he did, he would have called in sick and delivered my present on Boxing Day instead. Also, I felt like I have walked in on a secret Dad had been juggling with much success for about a decade.

Christmas breakfast that following morning was a strange one, to say the least. I remember pretending to be surprised upon finding my gifts from Santa at my bed and telling my brother how gutted I was for missing the chance to meet him in person.

The guilt stayed with me for the better part of the week and so, I began to do some investigative work on Santa Claus.

Read more on my festive investigation on the next page!

Looking for Santa

Back then the Internet didn’t exist so Google wasn’t my best friend. Instead, my best friend was a real person and he admitted to me too he discovered Santa wasn’t real and was a little peeved about it, to say the least.

What amazed me was how unaffected we were about the scam and instead of confessing to our fathers, we chose not to tell them what he had discovered.

In fact, many children these days – upon discovering Santa Claus is either Mum or Dad, don’t want to spoil the innocent image they had of Santa and choose to remain silent.

Let children be children

Till today, my dad doesn’t know about the discovery I made that fateful night. The presents dried up when we were about 14 years old. By then, my brother and I were too busy with friends and sports to get caught up with Santa Scam, I mean, Claus.

Up till’ today, I’m sure, children all over the world are still smitten by the magic of Santa Claus and Christmas. I say, let children fill their curious minds with Christmas cheer so they will always have a little space in their heads for fiction, as they get older.

I know I did, and I revisit that little part of my brain every December.

Trouble is, I now find myself a Dad and once Levi starts talking and comprehending the concept of Christmas, he may just try to stay up and catch me out!

I just hope he doesn’t read this article too soon!

Have a wonderful Christmas everybody, and may you find peace in your hearts. Remember, the loving and giving doesn’t have to happen just once a year!