How I Ruined Christmas

I ruined Christmas last year. Okay, not everyone’s Christmas, just for my oldest, the twelve-year-old boy. You see, he is still a believer. Well he was. He isn’t anymore. Until December 23, 2019 he fully believed in Santa Clause and the magic of Christmas until I ruined it.

How did I ruin it, dear reader?

Well, when you have children and you need to wrap gifts, you do it under the cover of night, after the children have gone to sleep and somewhere far away from where they sleep. And perhaps after wrapping a mountain of gifts, then hiding them in places where the children won’t look, like in closets where they are supposed to hang their clothes and coats, or behind cleaning supplies, you leave one gift out on accident, one gift that you didn’t notice on the stool in the kitchen where you wrapped last night, or in the morning while you were eating your breakfast in the semi-darkness. But when he wakes up, the twelve-year-old spies the gift and being inquisitive, he looks at it, looks at the gift tag and sees that the gift is from Santa. And it’s sitting in the kitchen. On December 23^rd.

Dear reader, did I mention that I was at work on this fine morning, thus leaving the aftermath of this shocking discovery to my wonderful wife. Since she doesn’t like to bother me at work with something as trivial as shattering our children’s belief in a made-up entity, she texted me.

B: You forgot to give me one of the presents that you wrote from Santa. The boy saw and is so upset. 

Me: Oops.

Me: sorry.

B: He still didn’t want to believe it wasn’t magic. He says we always tell him we can’t afford things.

Me: I’m sorry I have made your day even harder.

I should pause here and go back in time a few months. I mentioned how the twelve-year-old is still a believer. That belief extends beyond Santa Clause to other mythical beings whose tasks of giving gifts are really performed by parents, including the tooth fairy.

The twelve-year-old lost a tooth a few months ago. As dutifully as ever, he plopped the tooth in a plastic baggie and slid it under his pillow, eager to trade it for whatever small bills the tooth fairy might have in his wallet (is this why my mother always had a notebook will various denominations of cash in her desk, for these last minute tooth fairy emergencies after banking hours?). Unfortunately for the boy, the tooth fairy is often harried and tired on a week night and often can’t remember to pull the car off the street and into the driveway to avoid an overnight ticket, let alone remember to swap a few dollars for a tiny tooth. Simple put, the tooth fairy, both of them, forgot.

Not the real tooth fairy!

Luckily for me, I was again off at work that morning when the boy sulked into the kitchen after waking up to a tooth still in its bag, not swapped for cash.

“The tooth fairy didn’t take my tooth,” he reported as he dropped the baggie on the kitchen counter.

“Sometimes the tooth fairy forgets,” my wife said. She was being truthful, but that didn’t assuage the boy. He pouted all through breakfast, while making his lunch and while getting his bag ready for school. Finally, my wife had enough and sent to two younger kids upstairs so she could talk to the twelve-year-old alone.

“The tooth fairy isn’t real. I’m the tooth fairy. I’m the one who takes your teeth and replaces them with money, me and your dad.”

He looked at her in disbelief.

“No, that’s not true, mom.”

The conversation continued buts let’s just say she was unable to convince him that there was no tooth fairy. It certainly seemed like his believe was not just about the money. He really, really believed.

Later that day, the twelve-year-old lost another tooth. Come on, what are those odds that he loses a tooth on back to back days! When he got home from school, he added that tooth to the bag containing the tooth from the previous day.

“Now I get money for two,” he said.

“What are you going to do?” I asked my wife.

“I dunno.”

After we put the kids to bed and watched a little TV, we headed upstairs. She hadn’t really decided what to do and I could see she was torn. Eventually what she decided to do was to avoid a disappointed and disillusioned child by tiptoeing into his room and swapping the two teeth for a five-dollar bill. The next morning was a win, win, win for the boy. He had five bucks, he was happy, and he still believed.

So, back to Santa, back to the fateful morning of December twenty third. The truth is, the boy should have already lost his believe in the tooth fairy months ago, and once one crumbles, they take the others with them. Tooth Fairy: not real. Santa: not real. Easter bunny: not real. That goddamn elf on the shelf doesn’t lose his magic when you touch him, shots at the doctor’s office DO hurt, we DO have a favorite child, we’re just not telling you because it can change daily.

So they boy finds the wrapped gift from Santa. This time my wonderful, again left to deal with this on her own because I'm at work, doesn’t have much to say. There’s nothing to say. He’s figured it out.  No way to cover for this.

He still really wants to believe. He said he always tell him we can’t afford things (I just don’t want to buy him everything he wants because, well, getting everything you want will just set you up to be disappointed when you don’t get what you want. Let me tell you about the GI Joe Cobra Rattler). He wants the magic, he really does.

Does anyone still have their Hatchimal?

I want him to want the magic, too. As you get older and the magic is gone, Christmas can feel like nothing but work; shopping and wrapping and cleaning and cooking and decorating and guests, and staying up late to wrap and trying to find that goddamn Hatchimal that never gets played with after New Year’s day,   and too much to do and not enough time to do it and hiding gifts and lying about what’s in the bag and why does Amazon deliver a box every day and what’s in there  and Santa’s handwriting looks a lot like dad’s even though Dad is really trying to make it look different than his own handwriting but’s he’s really tied and school plays, and holiday programs and work holiday parties and orchestra concerts and unwrapping and bags and bags of the wrapping you spend hours on now just piled four garbage bags high and BAM  it’s over!

But when they wake up and rush downstairs and are excited by what they got, the things they said they wanted, and sometimes even more excited by the things they were surprised the got and didn’t ask for, that’s the fun. The magic.

My wife told him that now he gets to be part of the magic. He gets to help keep it alive for his youngest brother (the youngest always know the truth at the youngest ago as inevitable in a fit of anger, an older sibling ruin it for them). He still believes.

I never noticed it was already opened

What about my other child, my daughter, the poor forgotten middle child? Well, one of her friends told her that her dad told her when she was in second grade that Santa wasn’t real, and he and her mom did all the Christmas shopping and gift giving. She brought this up separately, first to my wife, then to me. I avoided answering, just saying “What do you believe?” but she’d already made up her mind that Santa wasn’t real, so I just turned up the music and we talked about nothing.

So now they are both part of the magic, hopefully keeping their brother a believer for a few more years. I just hope their part of helping with the magic is a bit different that my older brother. One year he opened and played with some of my gifts before my mom had wrapped them, then resealed them in their boxes. I never noticed.

My son did have one final question for his parents:

What did you do with my teeth?

Thanks for reading.