Fairies, Fat Men and Fibs

We are two months past Christmas and in the meantime, my six year old has been losing teeth and growing them back in faster than I can start weeping “I remember when you were just a drooling, teething, gumming mess!” And thanks to all the pasteled cardboard bunnies decking the halls of my local Target, I have been reminded that Easter is right around the corner. So what does this mean?

A whole lot of lying to my kid.

Why?

Because within a span of a few months, I will have told my kid that yes, one more mysterious magical being will creep into our home and leave him things.

Santa.

How does he get in?  The air vents? Why can’t we hear him? Do you promise he doesn’t come into my room?

The Tooth Fairy.

How big is she? Is she like Tinkerbell? Can she fly? How does she carry all this money and what does she do with all the teeth?

The Easter Bunny.

Does he lay these eggs? Does he like to eat plastic grass? Where does he come from? Why do I get jelly beans? What would the Tooth Fairy say?

And I come up with fascinating, complex responses to each of his questions. This year, I even managed to have the Tooth Fairy be in cahoots with Santa. If he does a good job brushing his teeth, she’ll let Santa know. His eyes were wide, considering all of this, hoping his rep remained in good standing for all of these magical home invaders.

And yet, those wondrous tales I weave? Lies. All of them.

Here I am trying to teach my six year old facts about the world. At school, he learns about gravity, liquids, solids, what floats, what sinks, where his nation’s capitol is and that Abraham Lincoln was our the 16th president. He helps me bake and bring his dishes back to the sink. He is learning responsibility and asks me questions about current events on the news. He is learning and processing and showing brief glimmers of (…I can hardly bare to consider it…) adulthood.

And then here I come along and throw in fat men squeezing into vents in our house (no “stranger danger” to worry about hon, I promise) and fairies flitting about dropping change and bunnies hopping through our home with an odd fetish for plastic grass.

It just feels a little… off.

But I try to back up and think of the six year old world I experienced some 30 odd years prior. I remember gleefully celebrating everything magical, fantastical and far from realistic. As fast as I learned about how serious and strange our world actually was, the hope of magic and fairies and gifts being left in the dead of night if I was a good girl absolutely appealed.

Because at six years old, magic still makes a lot of sense. Santa is about as real as some guy named Abraham Lincoln anyway. So let’s go with it.

But the guilt remains. I can’t help but feel like I’m lying. As much as he seems to enjoy these silly traditions…

Ok, wait. I’m lying again. He went through a faze at about 4 years old when the concept of some strange man coming into our home on Christmas Eve seemed more frightening than any spook left behind from Halloween. I promised he didn’t have to sit on his knee. I promised he wouldn’t go into his room. I promised that I was right down the hall. Yay for Christmas, isn’t this fun?

That has since passed. But during it all, I could not help but question why I had to shove this strange myth down his throat. Believe in Santa, damn it. After all, I believed – so YOU must too! Like some screwy rite of passage, you better be good for goodness sake.

And what will happen when my six year old learns about my litany of lies after all these years? Because what is all of this for? So that he can grasp onto some hope of magic only to have it dashed? I worry he will be so disappointed. Because he is wound deep into the tradition of it all now. He adores it all and takes it very seriously. I cringe a little while he solemnly places carrots for our reindeer in our driveway, making sure they are well fed for all their work. And then runs his pajama-ed feet back inside to find NORAD online and track Santa’s progress.

All of it is still so believable.

He believes because the barometer of all that is real and safe and ok  – that would be yours truly, Mommy -  said so.

Gawd, I am such a liar.

But there have been times where I have hinted that the magic isn’t there. I have forgotten to fill the advent calendar only to have him ask me to fill it, but could I do it when he’s not looking? He wants that candy to magically appear. And I have left the tooth fairy writing paper out, and the pen I used. He overlooks it. Maybe he didn’t connect the dots – or maybe he doesn’t want to.

I think I was close to ten years old before I was 100% sure there was no Santa. I held on for as long as I possibly could. I kept the faith, thinking the non-believers were totally losing out while I stubbornly bought into every last drop of Christmas magic. I knew that Santa and the Eater Bunny’s handwriting looked an awful lot like my parents. But I didn’t care. There were a lot of things we couldn’t explain, let’s just believe the magic is real.

And I think I still have to.

I need create magic for as long as he wants it. Because there is something special about believing. It fosters wonder and hope and possibility in their imaginations. If there is a tooth fairy hovering over my head, slipping change under my pillow, well anything seems possible, right?

Yeah.

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed how I rationalize my lies. Yes, saying there is a Santa means my child will have a fantastic imagination. Awesome.

But I will continue with these traditions and routines. They are woven into our culture. Watching them believe brings us back to a time when we believed. And that feels ok and fun and, who cares, everyone enjoys it. So I’m ok with that.

But when my six year old puts it together that my handwriting is the same as Santa’s and the Tooth Fairy’s and the Easter Bunny’s, when he comes home telling me what they are all insisting on the playground, when he mourns the fact that all of this magic is just, you’ve got to be kidding me, his mom… well. I’ll be back on here. Oozing with guilt and parental self doubt.

Until then, I am wondering if the Easter Bunny should leave a new toothbrush too – a little something from his “cuz” the Tooth Fairy. With all of those anticipated jelly bellies, the Easter Bunny might need to encourage a little dental care too. Yep, let’s weave some guilt into my tale of lies. It just might work.