As a bunch of the neighborhood kids were heading downstairs to play the other day, I overheard one 10-year-old girl speaking, uh, carelessly (if you get my drift) about Santa. I grabbed her by the arm and hissed, "Debbie! Susie still believes in Santa - DO NOT ruin it for her, okay?" Debbie, startled, was nodding her assent when I noticed another neighbor girl - aged 8 - standing next to her, listening to our conversation. She was looking, I noted with dismay, a tad crestfallen. "I still believe in Santa," she said, in what can only be described as a tone of uncertainty tinged with desperate hope.
Way to ruin a kid's Christmas, eh?
[Image credit: bigoo.ws]
Well, if it wasn't you it would have been Debbie. Which probably would have been better . . .
ReplyDeleteI believed until I was in 5th grade and I actually got in my one and only physical altercation over it. Imagine my chagrin when my mother explained that actually the other girl was NOT lying.
Well that's an 'Oh S%&#!' moment if there ever was one! My condolences.
ReplyDeleteI still believe. I don't know what you're talking about.
ReplyDeleteOuch.
ReplyDeleteOnly once has not believing in Santa been a conversation at my house. I simply said something about how people who don't believe in Santa don't get anything in their stockings...
I'll warn my crew that Santa is still in evidence at your house...the beans got spilled this year. Of course, we then found out that they haven't believed for awhile, and apparently played "guess who its for" with the presents while we lived in Sigonella.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first year where no one really believes in Santa. My husband is truly sad over this. But we all pretend we believe, anyway.
ReplyDelete@Faith - Your Jewish husband, no less! What is it about us Jews and our fondness for the jolly old guy? I swear, once Susie stops believing, I don't know what I'll do.
ReplyDeleteOh! I bet your stomach just DROPPED in that moment. I once braked hard on a highway while one of Mr. T's friends was talking carelessly in the back seat. "A deer! Did you see that?"
ReplyDeleteJews and Santa . . . Right? I've wanted to be santa at xmas forever. Maybe it's because it'd be in bad taste for us to be Jesus at Easter.
ReplyDeleteSantatheism is a wicked scourge in our land!
ReplyDeleteJust assure her that all those Santatheists are plain wrong.
Ooooh, yeah, that stinks!
ReplyDeleteI've done it too, but in my case the believer was 14 years old. And in 8th grade. So it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but her mother sure shot me the dagger-eyes. Sigh.
It is because Santa is such a mensch! Jewish culture loves someone like that. They even came up with the word mensch that has to be borrowed into English because the English didn't think of it on their own.
ReplyDeleteOh Em Gee. That suuuucks! My 7 year old son is believing only because I asked him if he really thought his dad and I, along with every other parent out there, would have enough energy to haul a bunch of hidden presents up from the basement. That sealed it for him...
ReplyDelete