My parents never raised me to believe in Santa Clause. However, my wife was raised to believe in him as a young kid, so that led to our daughter being allowed to believe in him. I have fond memories of Christmas last year when my daughter wanted one of the most popular toys on the market. Most of her friends had one, and it was on TV all the time. She was obsessing over it.
We told her to send a letter to Santa Clause asking for the toy. She wrote her letter in crayon, put it in an envelope, and we put it in the mail.
Then my wife and I had the joy of trying to find the toy she wanted since it was sold out in the stores nearby. We looked online for stores in our state, but the toy wasn’t in stock. This was going to be a difficult year to try to get our daughter what she asked Santa for.
We asked my mother-in-law if any of the stores in her state had the toy, but no luck there either. Things were starting to look grim. Santa wasn’t going to pull through this year.
Christmas memories of the way my parents used to do things now made sense to me. If you just avoid the whole Santa Clause thing, then Christmas is a lot less stressful (for the most part). Nonetheless, we tried to ensure that Santa Clause came through, so we kept asking people we knew in other states to check the stores.
I got a hold of my mom who lived a few states away, and asked her if any of the stores near her had the toy. She said she would check and call us back. Sure enough a store 30 minutes away from her had one left in stock! She was kind enough to go pick it up for us and said she would bring it to town when she came to visit for the holidays.
Eureka! Now our daughter wouldn’t have her heart broken, by this Santa Clause guy, that we got her to believe in the first place. Santa Clause can come through that year like he is always supposed to do. We didn’t wrap the present, but left a note on it saying it was from Santa. It would be the first thing she saw when she went to the Christmas tree.
Christmas morning she was all excited that Santa Clause brought her what she had asked him for. She played with the toy all day. We were happy parents knowing that all our hard work had paid off.
Fast-forward to a week after Christmas and she no longer played with that toy anymore. She didn’t even know where it was. It ended up being buried with all the other toys that she never played with anymore, but she had wanted so desperately when she didn’t have them.
Ah, the joys of being a parent! Ah, where would we be without TV commercials getting our kids all excited about the newest toy? Oh well. It’s part of life, and we get to look forward to it every year.