Next Stop, The North Pole!

When I was a kid, we believed in the magic of youth a lot longer than today's generation. What were we, 12 or 13 before we gave up that ghost? (Personally, I choose to still believe because my happy little world has a purple sky, endless rainbows, and a side of Chardonnay.) Of my three children, I have a firm realist (the 16 year old), an on-the-fencer (the 13 year old), and the "Well duh, he's totally real don't be stupid" (the 6 year old).

The on-the-fencer is a wily one though. I can't imagine that she's retained that youthful innocence. Especially not after riding the bus, not to mention going to middle school. At 13, there HAS to have been some bubble bursting by now. Yet there hasn't been once single indication that she's too old to believe and in fact, seems reluctant to even hear any blasphemy that points to the contrary. It's all true and you can't convince me otherwise, that's basically her motto.

Now, while I'm a big fan of kids not growing up too fast in our over sexed, over exposed, too adult world, it's frustrating that I can't just induct her into the "secret club" like I did with her older brother. I have pulled out the old speech (Everyone has the right to believe in magic for as long as they want to without other people deciding that for them and P.S. please do not spoil it for your younger brother.) and polished it up every year for the last 3 years now. While a large part of me thinks she's savvy to the ways of the elves and the big guy, part of me truly worries that she does believe and I'll have to do some bubble bursting of my own before she reaches high school and gets laughed out of freshman year. (Kids can be so cruel.)

The youngest, on the other hand, is surely destined to get off the Santa train effective this year. I've seen his Christmas list and it just ain't happening. He's listed half the stock of Best Buy. Among his top four choices are: iPhone 4, iPhone 5, a Nook (basically a tablet), and a Nintendo 3DS. (Keep in mind none of those are under $129.00.) He's too young for tablets and iPhones (or even cell phones in general) and he doesn't need a 3DS. So he's going to debunk the Claus clause because he's going to think, "Well that fat bastard didn't even get me anything on my list." Ok, so he wouldn't swear. But he might start contemplating why the old guy didn't cough up what he asked for. We told him to ask Santa for what he wanted and the geezer couldn't even produce something lame like the iPhone 3GS! OMG!

The best part of his list is that he asks for half an electronics store worth of plastic gadgets and ends the list with erasers. Like pencil erasers. So maybe I do have a shot of redeeming the old guy in his eyes. Surely good ol' boy Nick can swing that one, right? Especially if we explain that even the North Pole was hit by the economic downturn and had to downsize their electronics manufacturing division.....

Bad Santa! Wasting resources!