Writer's Block: Do You Believe?
When I was a little girl of about six, I noticed that some of my Christmas presents had tags on them. Tags from stores like 'Two Guys' and 'Jamesway'. As I was not a stupid child, I sat down to ponder this dilemma.
Santa had a workshop, therefore he had no need to shop at these stores. My mother, however - shopped at these stores all the time. That lead to only one horrific conclusion - my parents had lied to me! Santa didn't bring me my presents - they did. And if they did the present bringing, the wrapping and the placing them under the tree - what did Santa do?
That was pretty much his whole spiel, other than letting kids sit on his lap - which bordered on the disturbing anyhow. When I confronted my mother with the existential quandary I was having, she caved and told me the truth. There was no Santa.
Armed with the awesome power of my two-fold knowledge (one: santa wasn't real, and two: parents weren't above lying to us) I walked into my first grade class and announced the news to my classmates. "Guess what? Santa's not real, and your momma's a liar" didn't exactly go over well - some of them had barely mastered the art of not eating the paste after all, and others while intelligent enough were naive and believed that their mom and dad would never!
Little did they know! No one would play with me at lunch that day, and I sulked and vowed that if I discovered any other Very Important Secrets of Life, I was so not sharing with these people.
Christmas was never quite as magical, and maybe that was the very beginning of my long foray into disbelieving a lot of other myths my parents told me (the tooth fairy , the easter bunny, Jesus and pals, and so on....).
But so it goes.
Santa had a workshop, therefore he had no need to shop at these stores. My mother, however - shopped at these stores all the time. That lead to only one horrific conclusion - my parents had lied to me! Santa didn't bring me my presents - they did. And if they did the present bringing, the wrapping and the placing them under the tree - what did Santa do?
That was pretty much his whole spiel, other than letting kids sit on his lap - which bordered on the disturbing anyhow. When I confronted my mother with the existential quandary I was having, she caved and told me the truth. There was no Santa.
Armed with the awesome power of my two-fold knowledge (one: santa wasn't real, and two: parents weren't above lying to us) I walked into my first grade class and announced the news to my classmates. "Guess what? Santa's not real, and your momma's a liar" didn't exactly go over well - some of them had barely mastered the art of not eating the paste after all, and others while intelligent enough were naive and believed that their mom and dad would never!
Little did they know! No one would play with me at lunch that day, and I sulked and vowed that if I discovered any other Very Important Secrets of Life, I was so not sharing with these people.
Christmas was never quite as magical, and maybe that was the very beginning of my long foray into disbelieving a lot of other myths my parents told me (the tooth fairy , the easter bunny, Jesus and pals, and so on....).
But so it goes.