by Richard
The other day, I received some grim news. Quite grim indeed. From the so-young-to-be-so-cynical files here’s this newsflash: My youngest little dude, Speed Racer, only age 10.4, has informed me that he no longer believes in Santa Claus.
I’ll pause here to allow you all to catch your breaths after that collective gasp I just heard. Yes, innocence is dead in our house. It died from a bunch of fifth graders being a bunch of fifth graders.
Now, sometimes, and I know this will come as a shock to most of you, I’ve been known to exaggerate. Just a little. A smidge, really. More like a dab. So not really much at all, but it’s been known to happen. Not this time, however. I report the following to you verbatim.
George of the Jungle, Speed Racer and I were talking about Christmas presents and Speed Racer said to George of the Jungle, “Yeah, so ‘Santa’ can get them for me.” I could actually hear the quotation marks around the word Santa. I was crushed, but manfully managed to kept it in.
I took Speed Racer, afterward, to a friend’s house. On the way, I asked, “What’s this about quote Santa unquote.”
Speed racer just shook his head. “Everybody knows that you’re Santa.”
“Well,” I said, “Just because everybody believes something, that doesn’t make it right. After all, I believe in Santa.”
“There’s no way there’s one guy who goes around with flying reindeer — and there’s no such thing as flying reindeer — in a sleigh with, probably, like, seven zillion presents and does it all in one night. And nobody ever sees him. Yeah, right.
“Dad, come on. We all know every parent is Santa.”
“Well,” I said, “that’s pretty magical. I mean, all those people combining to form one person.”
Sigh. “Dad, I meant every parent is Santa to their kids. I know why you want me to believe in Santa. You want to prolong the innocence of youth, right?”
Me, stubborn: “I believe in Santa and, remember, in our house, if you don’t believe, you don’t receive.”
Deep, deep sigh. “Fine. I believe in Santa.”
Speed Racer, mumbling very low, but loud enough at least for me to hear it in the front seat: “Because I want to get the presents.”
Waily, waily, waily.
I knew this was coming when he started asking some rather pointed questions about Santa last year. Then I was able to fob him off with some nifty dancing and some fancy evasions. This year? Not so much. In fact, he kept it up. All through dinner and much of the evening, he kept calling me Santa, rather than Dad. Why couldn’t he be like George of the Jungle, who, despite being 16, has never actually come straight out and told us that he doesn’t believe in Santa. In actuality, he’s been quite helpful in keeping Speed Racer on the side of belief for years.
Too late now, though.
It’s a lonely time in our house, with only the two adults still believing in Santa Claus. sigh Good-bye, St. Nick. We’ll miss seeing you in the eyes of our little dudes.
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[...] couple of months ago, Speed Racer announced to the family that he no longer believed in Santa Claus. At the tender age of 10 years. It just about broke my heart. I thought all that kind of stuff, [...]