I believed in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy until I was twelve. I swear. Sure, there were rumblings about them not being real from as early as first or second grade, but I resolutely refused to buy into the rumor. When my friends entered into blatant, bold discussions about their parents being involved in the ruse, I simply did not join in. It was obvious to me that they had their truths, and I had mine. Of course, doubt occasionally surfaced in my mind--the older we got it seemed like everyone I knew no longer believed, so maybe there was something to the gossip. But I never saw any evidence to support their claims. I probably wasn't looking very hard, but I never saw any evidence to support my own beliefs, either. True believers don't need evidence. They simply believe, through every corner of their being, without question.
The year I was twelve, my dad asked me if I wanted to help with the wrapping of the Santa presents. While neither he nor my mom and I had ever had a discussion about the reality of Santa, in his defense--I was twelve (almost thirteen would be closer to the mark). My sister was nine, and she was one of those kids on the other side of the fence already. So he probably figured my belief was just a facade for my little brother.
It wasn't, and I will never forget that moment when my belief system came crumbling down upon me like the very earth itself. Dramatic, yes, but that's how I felt. I can still see myself, standing in the living room, right before the stairs, with my dad saying those words and then flashing me a conspiratorial grin as he jogged upstairs, off to commit fraud with wrapping paper and "Love, Santa" labels.
From that day forward, I looked forward to having my own children, so that I might relive the true spirit of Christmas and Easter and losing teeth through them.
Instead, the god of Desire was up to its usual mischief, because my first child has been wisely wary of the whole Mysterious Midnight Visitors since Day One.
My son was one and a half when Santa started freaking him out. He didn't like the idea that Santa would come down our chimney, while he was sleeping. I know; you say, "He was only 20 months. Did he really understand?" Trust me. He understood. The only way we were able to stop his rising hysterics that Christmas Eve was to promise we'd get Santa to leave the presents on the doorstep, outside, and not to come in the house. Thankfully, my son was young enough not to question exactly when we brought the presents inside the next morning, so it was a good Christmas despite his fears.
We decided it was just some free-floating anxiety, and it wouldn't happen the next year.
We were wrong. The following Christmas Eve, when he was two and a half, we had to perform several almost-OCD-like checks on the windows, doors and fireplace grate before he went to bed--to make sure Santa wouldn't be getting in no way, no how.
I began to wonder if he'd been murdered by red-velvet wearing burglars in a past life.
My son's anxieties have lessened as he got older, and when he was five we were even able to "let" Santa come down the chimney. Having a little sister has definitely helped: while his serious doubt about magic and Santa's ability to exceed the speed of light proves he doesn't completely buy into the whole Santa deal, he definitely puts on a good front for Little Sis. I'm also convinced he's accepted Santa's existence, for now, because of the end result: all those pretty presents underneath the tree.
But absolute belief? Down deep life sustaining belief? Not for my boy.
Strangely, the Easter Bunny and, later, the Tooth Fairy, have not disturbed him nearly as much. While he's not real sure what the heck a Fairy would want with a bunch of teeth, he apparently puts it down to her business, and is OK with her sneaking into his bedroom and leaving money underneath his pillow. He was, in fact, very excited for his first Tooth Fairy visit, and while he has questioned her ability to fly, as a tiny creature, with a big bag of teeth or heavy coins, nothing much has come of it. He likes money, maybe even more than gift-wrapped presents, so he's apparently made his peace.
As for the Easter Bunny? I like to think--imagine, my husband says--that I have enjoyed at least a little of that absolute, down deep life sustaining belief in the Easter Bunny. Easter has always excited him, and we never saw any anxiety about the giant bunny hopping into our house in the middle of the night. I suppose a giant bunny sneaking into your house is more benign then an actual man--red-velvet wearing or otherwise--sneaking into your house. After all, CNN never reports about giant bunnies murdering people in their sleep.
Last year my son did spend a few hours ruminating on the Easter Bunny's ability to hop so fast he could hide eggs all over the place in one night, and he did question the Bunny's storage capacity for carrying all the candy needed. But these were merely theoretical musings, and we as a family came up with several creative ways this could be possible, if we did away with a few rules of physics (if we're ruminating with my son and my husband, the rules of physics are always taken seriously, and they view my motto, "Anything is possible" as sheer heresy).
For the few weeks before Easter this year, my son has been talking about staying up late to catch the Easter Bunny, or setting a trap to catch him in the act. I laughed and played along with trap variations until Good Friday, when my curiosity got the better of me. "What," I said, "exactly will you do with the Easter Bunny if you catch him?" "Prove he's real," my son said. "Or prove he's just a man in a bunny suit." "Why?" I asked him. "Who's been saying he's not real?" "Well," my son said. "Some of my classmates don't believe in other life forms outside of this universe."
Not sure we'd heard him correctly, my husband and I both said, almost simultaneously, "What do other life forms have to do with the Easter Bunny?"
Then my son gave us the preview of his teenage "You are such idiots" look, opening his wide eyes even wider and sort of rolling them at us, dropping his jaw and throwing back his shoulders. "He's a Giant Bunny," my son said, "who lays eggs and hops around the world delivering candy. There's no life form like that on this planet. He can't be from Earth! He's got to be of alien origin!"
For the first time, I have hope that little twelve year old diehard believer did live on in him, a little bit--that he didn't get all of his dad's black-and-white views on life. He's thinking harder and better then I ever did, but...there's nothing wrong with a little skepticism to balance out the dogma .
The world might be a better place, if we all thought long and hard about our own down deep life sustaining beliefs and didn't just naively follow our convictions.
