In a way, it’s been a bittersweet holiday season so far in our household. 

You see, the day after a Halloween on which my youngest didn’t want to trick or treat anymore, we were on an extended road trip when she piped up from the backseat and said, “Mom, my friends were talking about Santa Claus yesterday and (friend who shall remain nameless) said there is no Santa Claus and it’s just our parents putting out gifts. Is that true?”

My husband and I exchanged a swift sideways glance. We’d been expecting this conversation for quite some time, both with a sense of dread and of anticipation. She’s 10 years old and it seems that this conversation has happened earlier with each of our three kids. We had discussed how we planned on handling it when the time came.

So, with a glance in the backseat to her expectant and somewhat worried face, I said, “Well, what do you think?”

“Well, I don’t know. There are some things I don’t believe in anymore. . . like the Easter Bunny. That’s just dumb and kind of creepy. Why would a giant bunny go around giving people candy shaped like eggs?” 

After we laughed and agreed the notion was kind of silly, and I confessed I had no idea where that particular myth had originated or what it had to do with Easter itself, our conversation continued. 

“But I guess I kind of want to believe in Santa Claus,” she said. I asked her to explain further and I guess I expected her to say something about presents, but, as usual with my kids, she had something much more thoughtful to say. 

“Because Santa is magic and it’s good to believe in magic.”

We had a good long talk about that magic and what she meant. At its heart it came down to kindness and giving and love, hope and faith and family. We talked about why we give our loved ones gifts at the holidays and what those gifts mean. We talked about the magic that can come from every one of us when we choose to live with love in our hearts and do kind things for others. 

Just when I thought she had perhaps decided to go on believing, in her characteristic fashion, she said, “But how would Santa even get in our house when we don’t have a chimney, and why would you and Dad be OK with some guy coming in our house in the middle of the night? Because I know you guys would never be OK with that.” 

To share a bit of our mindset here, my husband and I have become increasingly frustrated with the entire Santa Claus thing lately. It’s really difficult to come up with explanations as to why some kids get PlayStations while others get socks or nothing at all, especially when we as a culture fabricate this entire myth about Santa keeping a naughty and a nice list. 

It’s been challenging in our own household to explain the differences between what our kids receive compared to some of their friends, but my heart breaks when I think about kids in poor families who must think they are simply awful because they didn’t get the expensive gifts from Santa that their classmates received. 

We’ve been trying, for several years, to shift the focus away from Santa for precisely that reason. (OK, for mostly that reason — confession time, after more than 20 years of playing the Santa game with the wide age range of our kids, we’re honestly a little tired of it.) We always choose angels off the Angel Tree and take the kids with us to choose gifts, for example, and we’ve been trying to keep the focus on spending time together as a family rather than opening presents. 

So, a part of me has been really ready for the Santa thing to be over, looking forward to creating new traditions, while a part of me is all too aware that she’s the youngest child and we’re on the verge of bidding goodbye to many things that have been part of our lives for decades.

Not to mention that I haven’t wanted to deprive her of any of the precious parts of childhood simply because I myself have felt an urge to move on. 

With all this buzzing through my brain during that car ride, I was trying my best to just have a conversation and let her make her own choice about continuing to believe. Her comment about some guy coming in our house during the night was still hanging in the air when it seemed she had an epiphany of sorts. 

She came to the conclusion that it didn’t matter whether the Santa in a red suit flying around the world with magical reindeer was real; what mattered was the spirit of the story and all the magic we’d already discussed. 

I have to admit, my heart broke a little when she was speaking. I could almost see a little piece of her youth slipping away in the tears that brimmed in her eyes, which she bravely fought to keep back. In so many ways, watching your children grow up right before your eyes is simultaneously crushing and thrilling. 

But I told her she was right, and it didn’t matter because we all possess a little magic and now she gets to move on to a new Christmas chapter where she helps share that magic with others. I told her knowing the “real” story of Santa is a great responsibility because she has to teach other kids how to believe in magic so one day, they’re prepared to spread it around, too. We talked about keeping that knowledge as a shared secret and how much fun it can be to be on the other side of the Santa story. 

We were also able to use it as a teaching moment to talk about all the blessings we have that others do not and how especially important it is to spread that magic to the people who’ve lost their hope and really need something to believe in. 

It’s been several weeks since that conversation and I think we’re all looking forward to some of the new traditions we’re planning this year. Since we don’t have to convince her to go to bed early — like anybody can go to sleep when they’re listening for the sound of hooves on the roof — we’ve decided we can spend Christmas Eve staying up late, drinking cocoa and eating the cookies we would have left out for Santa, and playing family board games or watching movies. 

She’s gotten really excited about helping to choose gifts and was able to really understand what it meant when we were selecting items for our Angel Tree angels. 

I’m sure there might be some sadness, for both her and me, as Christmas draws ever nearer, and it really sinks in that this year is different. But, mostly, I’m hopeful we’re able to make it a Christmas to remember and that our talks and new focus help to remind all of us of the importance of believing in magic. It’s a good thing to believe in.