That’s it now. September is here. The summer holidays are done. Kids are back to school. And it’s only 113 days to Christmas.
Sorry. But someone in your house has probably already mentioned it. Or you have. Daughter Number Four has brought it up a few times, but not in the usual way: she didn’t want to count down the weeks or agonise over what presents to get. Instead, she asked the Santa Question.
Curiously, she didn’t pose the question as an accusation: that for the past few years I and the rest of her family have been lying to her, that we’ve been participating in a massive international fraud perpetrated by adults on children. It was more like that this was a thought she’d been having, and she wanted to know what I thought about that thought.
Like any responsible parent, I panicked and changed the subject.
Your top stories on Wednesday
Q&A: Will we have a tax liability if Dad gives us his home while he is alive?
How does VAT in Ireland compare with countries across Europe? A guide to a contentious tax
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall’s son on his parents: ‘Kids were second to their drinking and partying’
My reaction was, in some respects, a selfish one. Six and a half is the typical age to start having doubts. It’s inevitable that she will realise eventually. But I don’t want it to happen; not just yet.
She has greatly enjoyed the idea of Santa arriving and the month of Elf on the Shelf placed in different positions around the house was for her a daily joy. Her fervent belief that a plastic doll was a magical emissary from the North Pole was in itself magical: it’s been magical for everyone in the house. That’s the selfish bit. Her wonder was infectious. For the last few years, Christmas hasn’t just been a season of frenetic consumerism and overeating. She made it better for everyone.
According to the various Guilty Parent websites, what I should have done was to ask open-ended questions: why do you ask? Why do you think that? And then perhaps throw in some guff about Saint Nicholas and what a great fella he was. I don’t know.
I think Daughter Number Four is shrewder than that. The existence or not of the big man is a pretty binary proposition. Anything other than a “Yes” or “No” sounds like sophistry.
Herself feels the same, and panicked even more when she was ambushed by the Santa Question. It’s not quite a ringing-Tusla offence, but she flat-out lied. Yes, of course. In her defence, she’d already been spooked by Daughter Number Four’s growing scepticism: she recently announced that unicorns don’t exist and never have. Just like dinosaurs.
Happily, Herself was able to talk Daughter Number Four back from the brink of creationism, but we can’t keep her insulated from reality. She’s already starting to figure it out for herself and sooner or later, the kids around her will too. And that’s as it should be. Yet we’re still being selfish. It’s only 113 days until Christmas, and it would be nice to keep the magic going for just one more year. For us. And for her.
Because when Santa goes, so will the Elf. And the tooth fairy. Her view of the world will become more limited, bounded by the restrictions of the physical universe. She’ll come to realise that imagination is something interior to her, that it doesn’t interact with the world outside. The vivid colours of her child’s mind will become a little dimmed.
But not entirely. There will always be the unexplainable; and slivers of doubt keep the mind open. As I’ve written here before, myself and Daughter Number Four are usually first up. She’s in the sittingroom, I’m in my office. She travels back and forth to ask questions or ask me to cut a hole in some cardboard construction of hers. At weekends, she tries to wheedle a biscuit or Nutella on toast before breakfast.
Just two weeks ago, as I was struggling with Wordle, she walked in and said: “Treat?”
Which was the answer I had been looking for. She got a lollipop.