Santa and the Tooth Fairy

Christmas is a very strange time of year. Like many Christian families we find ourselves uneasily trying to celebrate with the usual round of friends, family, colleagues, school parties etc and trying to recognize the birth of Christ as the central point. This isn't without it's tensions either.

For a start, what about the Christmas tree. For years I have hated the wretched things. Never mind the paganism, they are dirty, take up too much space and drop needles all over the house. I never bothered having one, however my wife has always bought one every year. To be honest this year it grated the least that it has ever done and I didn't resent bringing the thing in at all. This is for a number of reasons, firstly I'm probably just mellowing with age (!), secondly the kids are now at an age when the tree thing really thrills them in innocent joy, thirdly I think that in terms of making Christmas 'Christian' by making Christ central - I reckon there are bigger fish to fry (starting with my own attitude to material things).

Then we come to Santa. Put aside for a moment the oft-noted fact that he is extremely mean spirited when flying over world trouble-spots and disaster zones, but buys the whole of Toys-R-Us for western kids....... Here is an issue on which my wife and I disagree. She was raised in a home where Santa was strongly pushed and believed in - I wasn't. I can't bring myself to straight-facedly tell the kids stuff I know to be false (why then should they believe anything I say?) whereas for the Mrs, Santa was a treasured childhood memory she wants to pass on. I have always been evasive on the subject and this year young Boris noticed (for the first time) the discrepancy between the two stories. "Telll me the truth Daddy, is Santa real, I MEAN THE TRUTH" he said! I mumbled something about his beard looking awfully white for someone who had come down a sooty chimney and tried to change the subject sensing wifely dissaproval!

As for the tooth-fairy. Boris lost his first tooth on the 18th and stashed the tooth under the pillow. Amazingly the tooth fairy failed to show up. Next they'll be telling that she isn't real either.