I hated the whole concept of Santa Claus once I had children. I know how bah humbug that sounds, but I hated the idea of lying to my kids about something so weird. I didn’t mind it when i was a kid, and I have santa decorations in my home, but sorta got hung up on the concept. So I decided when my daughter was a brand new baby, that I would let my kids believe until they flat out asked. When they flat out asked . . . I’d fess up.

It was harder than I thought it would be when my daughter, at the age of four, came to me and flat out asked. Her huge hazel eyes squinted in suspicion, her skinny arms folded over her chest. I couldn’t lie, but I couldn’t exactly tell the truth either.

So I improvised.

I took her across the street to the beauty parlor where they have the angel tree set up every year in our town and I let her pick a star. We went back to our store where we sell gift items and I let her pick the gift for the little girl on the star. I let her hand me the tape while I wrapped the gift, and we took it back and put it under the angel tree.  When we got home, I sat her down and said, “You were just Santa Claus. Santa Claus isn’t real as a person, but he’s kind of real in a way because people care about eachother in the world and do things for eachother.” Then I explained about the birth of the Savior and the gift that was to the world and how gift giving is a way for us to remember the ultimate gift. (I’d exaplined the Savior to her lots of times, but this is the first time I put it in context of explaining how Santa fit in) I told her it was fun to give gifts and play Santa. I told her it was so much fun that every year her dad and I got to play Santa for her.

She was four but she understood. And she liked what we’d done. She wasn’t traumatized over finding out that the fat man wasn’t real and I never had to lie. She won’t need counseling over it (she’ll need counseling over other things, but that’s for another post).

Since it worked so well with her, I tried it when my boys came to me with “the question.” It worked with them too. We’ve made it a little tradition and the kids like it. They don’t even mind that I make them earn the gifts with chores so they’ve put more into it than just pulling down a star from a tree. They have to work for the kids they get gifts for.

I like being Santa every now and again. That guy has huge job satisfaction. And even when the kids insist on doing their own wrapping, using too much tape, paper, and patience, it’s not truly Christmas until  we’ve brought those stars into our own home and made them parts of our lives for a little while.

I spent the holiday weekend with my parents in St George and am proud to say I did no Black Friday shopping. This is likely a first for me. But all my Christmas shopping was completed in October so I am set! Woohoo!

Instead of shopping, my brother and I,  along with our spouses and children, went to the swimming pool in St George. It’s called Sand Hollow and has a water slide and fun water things for kids to play on. It’s an awesome pool. We knew the kids would love it. My six-year-old nephew found another little boy his age and said to him, “Hi, do you want to be my friend?” The kid said, “Sure!” and off they went, friends for life . . . or at least until their parents dragged them kicking and screaming from the pool.

I’ve been thinking about how much simpler life would be if we could do that as adults . . . or even as teenagers. High school would have been far less traumatizing if we could go up to someone and say, “Hi, would you like to be my friend?” A new workplace would be easier to acclimate to. Writer’s conferences filled with new faces would be so much more comfortable. Changing wards or church congregations wouldn’t be so painful. Moving to a new neighborhood would be less nerve wracking.

The blogging world holds some of that youth-like influence. Maybe it is the anonymity of the computer that strips off the barriers of stuffy adulthood. But I don’t have a problem going to someone else’s blog, feeling touched or enlightened by their words, and leaving a comment. Comments very much are the essence of: “Hi, would you like to be my friend?”

Thanksgiving with the family was great. I missed having my other siblings present, but they stayed in Salt Lake and did their own deals. It’s nice to sit down for Thanksgiving dinner, look around the table, and feel your heart swell with gratitude for the people surrounding you. There is much in this world to be grateful for indeed.

I know there is some great joy to be had when one is raising an intelligent child. There’s the obvious pride when teachers gush and praise you for your supreme parenthood (as my husband and I exchange the guilty looks of parents who know the child’s intelligence was nature not nurture). There is the satisfaction of not really having to nag about homework and tests. There is never  concern for the future of said child . . . except sometimes. Like  when said really-smarter-than-you child gets into word play. At times like those, you worry over the child’s future because once you kill them, they won’t have a future.

My children love word play; they love semantics, and they love using it against me. Like the time I bought lap blankets for each of them so they’d quit dragging their bedding off their beds.  I told them the blankets were for them to drag around the house. So when I found the blankets outside and full of those foxtail weeds that you could pick out until your fingers bleed and still never remove them all, I went nuts.

“Why did you take these outside??? Do they look like outside blankets to you???”

They blink at me like I’m stupid (and hey . . . maybe I am), then they quote me my own words, “You said they were to drag AROUND the house. So we did. We dragged them around the whole house–a couple of times actually. We used them as super hero capes, but they didn’t stay on too well.”

“I meant inside the house, not outside!” I can’t believe I’m yelling what I “meant” when they all three know darn good and well what I meant. I didn’t pick the foxtail weeds out. I told them if they couldn’t do that, then I’d use the blankets and a lighter to create the heat for the next marshmallow roast.

So often my kids fling words like mud, “But you said . . .”

“But I meant . . .”

And they *know* what I meant. I have their test scores.  I’m not raising  dummies; yet they still keep up the semantics game. 

And people wonder why I threaten to rip their tongues out of their heads and beat them with them. I swear I can hear those three smirking from the other room right now, plotting ways around the fact that they’re in trouble for not doing chores. 

I told them to clean up their rooms. I told them I wanted all the stuff on the floor picked up. So later I went in to find the stuff on the floor picked up and discarded to any space *not* on the floor. Dressors were covered with spiderman action figures and star wars ships and legos. Half empty cups of water (from the nighttime episodes of a child entering my room an hour after bedtime demanding a cup of water. I swear before I had kids, I thought that the whole cup of water thing was a joke perpetuated by Hollywood) balanced precariously on top of towers they’d created from wrappers, old school papers, and the mud balls, sticks and rocks they brought into the house. (I love nature . . . when it’s OUTSIDE!).

“I told you to clean your room!” Again the yelling with what I told them . . .

“No . . . ” They say.  “You told us to pick everything up off the floor. We did.”

I didn’t bother to tell them what I meant. I took a prescription strength ibuprofin for my headache.

 TSK TSK. They’ve underestimated their mother. I am so sticking mayonaisse in the cool whip container.

I know I know. Halloween was a week ago and the most current post is from two weeks ago and I haven’t played anywhere in blogland for weeks.  Sorry.  I ran away with my husband. We went to Puerto Rico with my husband’s business and I decided NOT to take my laptop.  It was strange, almost as if someone had severed a limb, to not have access to my computer and the life I live on my computer, but I managed tolerably well (as seen in photo above)

We scoured the shores for sand dollars, played in the ocean, hiked the rain forests, and swam in the waterfalls of the rain forest. Ah the bliss of listening to tree frogs sing you to sleep as the ocean waves beat a steady rhythm outside your window. I missed not having my kids there. I hate not sharing exciting things with them, but it was nice to go back to us and just being a couple for a few days.

I know I say it all the time, but I stand by my words. My husband is the sexiest man in the world.

From there we flew into LA California for my book signing at the Disneyland hotel which went fantastically! What is better than selling through a few cases of books and then going on Space Mountain afterward. Again, there was guilt for not having kids with us, but there is something to be said for roaming through the shops and spending time looking at the fine art in the galleries without hearing, “Can I have???” every two seconds. Now I’m back from paradise and trying to catch up on my kids, laundry, writing, and editing.

And I know this is wordless Wednesday but I have a hard time shutting up.