Yes, #1, there is a Santa Claus

Don't hate me, dear readers, but with the exception of one gift, I am done with my Christmas shopping. KA-POW! Take that holiday season!

I ask you not to hate me because of the reason behind my early birdiness. I am going to need all of my energy to focus on Operation Santa is Real.

My eldest has reached the age where many children stop believing in Santa Claus. Jaded hoodlums in her class, tapping Facebook updates into their iPhones, will sneer with derision as she and her equally innocent gang discuss what they included in their letters to Santa. So far, she has not come home with any tales of schoolyard revelations courtesy of the class cool kid (read: asshole) and, for that, I am thankful, but I am afraid this might be our last year.

Santa belongs to that realm of childhood magic also inhabited by the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny. Admittedly, both of those characters have come under intense scrutiny over the last year, mostly due to mistakes made by H and me. The Easter Bunny almost met his untimely demise when #1 opened my bedroom door as I was assembling the baskets for the next morning. Had I not dive-bombed across my bed, slamming the baskets to the floor behind, Peter Cottontail would have gone up in smoke. And the Tooth Fairy. Obviously invented before television or the internet, giving parents something to do in the small hours between their children's and their bedtime, other than make more children, she is on the endangered list, as H and have forgotten more times than we have remembered, to put some cash under our offspring's pillows before they arise at the crack of dawn. Cries of, "SHE DIDN'T COME!", have been met with such lame excuses as "maybe she's sick" and the shamefully blame-shifting, "you stayed up too late". But Santa, he gets done right. Even though we are bone tired from The Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve, we wait until the kids are dead asleep, doing numerous checks, before the presents are taken out of their hiding places, with one of us standing guard in the family room doorway all the while.

#1 has not ever asked if Santa is real. I think I may have prevented that with my answer when she questioned the Tooth Fairy's existence. "John in my class says your parents leave the money" is what I was faced with one night at dinner.* To which I responded, "He's right." Cue horrified stares. I continued, "Once you stop believing, she stops coming and I will leave the money." I am lucky she is such an innocent and desperately wants to believe. But I have been helping her along with Herculean efforts when it comes to to proving the Big Guy is legit. Last year, thanks to my mother in-law's purchase of a "Santa Kit", we used a boot-shaped template to leave sooty footprints on the crappy family room carpet (the torn pice of his jacket was too much and looked like it had been made in a factory in China, rather than created by Mrs. Claus' deft hands). The carpet having been replaced, and no longer available as a canvas for proof of mythological holiday figures, I went commercial, and bought the Elf on a Shelf my children had been discussing. Cute, concept. The Elf, with his flimsy felt body and creepy, sideways glancing eyes, flies off to Santa each night to give a daily report, returning to a new spot in your home each morning. I am determined not to miss a night. I foresee a lot of middle of the night excursions back downstairs for myself, as H is tapping out of this one, having not been consulted on this purchase, stating, "This is the dumbest thing ever. It's the Tooth Fairy times infinity."

I don't care what it takes, I will fight to keep #1 a believer as long as I can. Once it's over, it will be like a veil has been lifted and she has crossed over from the fairy land of childhood, into the wasteland of adolescence. That wide-eyed wonder Christmas morning is one of the joys of parenthood. It is all the hope in the universe distilled into one moment. It is innocence and joy in its purest form.

I am lucky in that #1 does not want to be enlightened. I know she must have her doubts, but is not willing to speak them aloud. What exactly do I tell her when that time comes? My plan, thus far is to ask, "What do you think?" And if she has her doubts I will tell her, "As long as you need him, Santa, and all his magic, will be there."

Sounds like someone else in her life, doesn't it?

*Again, no warning. Parenting: The Pop Quiz that Never Ends.