March 8: Writing Prompt #67-Fantasy

The Tooth Fairy (or Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus . . .): a fun and harmless fiction, or a pointless justification for lying to children?

Seriously?! I don’t know ANY parent who is looking for a “pointless justification” for lying to their children. Here’s my Santa Claus story:

When I was in elementary school (I think it was about 3^rd or 4^th grade, but I don’t quite remember-it was the same year my girlfriends were starting to shave, and I hadn’t yet…), my friends started making fun of me because they discovered that I still believed in Santa Claus, and they didn’t. I came home in tears to my mom, and smart cookie that she is, she took me to the study in the house on Westmoreland and pulled out the encyclopedia.  I sat down in her lap as she read to me about Saint Nicolas and his habit of secret gift giving to children. And that was enough for me, enough to keep my faith alive, enough for me to know that the spirit of Christmas was REAL, not fiction at all. It was fact. 

I remember that night very fondly, and it is the primary reason I have had no problems sharing Santa Claus with my boys because it’s part of being a child. When we are children, we see things through a child’s eyes, even when we are told pure, hard facts, we make them into what we want and need to see at the time. But, the idea that there is truth in the traditions we celebrate, that there is a wonderful history to share makes it okay that maybe it’s not ALL true.  Disney movies are not ALL real, but love is true and real and can be as wonderful and unconditional as Disney movies portray.   God is not someone we can see and touch and “prove” He is real, but we can feel Him, and there are so many miraculous events we cannot explain except through a higher power such as God. 

I want my children to believe in the spirit of life, the spirit of love and giving, the spirit of childhood and a childlike faith.  I don’t have any problems sitting down with them if and when they need me to in order to explain the real and fiction of Santa Claus and other childhood fantasies because the ideas behind these characters and their generosity and innocence is something that I want my children to remember, to understand. Because, in the end, it’s all about faith. We believe in things we cannot see, we cannot possibly know ever beyond the shadow of a doubt, but life is hardly worth living if you have no faith, no hope that there’s such a thing as an innocent and giving spirit or spirits in the world, people who love because it’s all they know and people who give because they love to give, and people who share because it’s just the right thing to do. 

I loved being a child, and I love having the opportunity to be around children on a daily basis because their joy, their curiosity, their pure love for those who care for them is so precious….it’s something we all lose a bit of as we grow, and I’m in no hurry and in no way ready to give up the fantasies of childhood in order to introduce children to the “real world” before they are ready.  We have such a short time to live in that world of pure happiness at the idea of someone we have never seen giving us a present or caring about something as small as our teeth, so why take it away? 

Of course, the lesson is that as your children grow and recognize more about what is real and what is an exaggerated story developed from real traditions, you have the awesome opportunity to remind them that there is an actual REAL entity who created this magnificent world and can do more in one night or one lifetime than Santa, the Easter Bunny, or Tooth Fairy ever dreamed of….an entity who loves them and knows them better than anyone in the world, and that’s God.  Maybe it is all fantasy…and maybe we are all terrible people for letting our children believe in it and promoting it, but I’d rather have them believe in the impossible than start out life bitter and disappointed. I’d rather believe in God and the miracles that happen every day to my friends and family and others I don’t even know than live life thinking there’s nothing more to life than a world filled with fear, crime, and hurt. What about you? 

And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, "Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. "Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.… Matthew 18:2-4