Ireland - 31st October - Halloween, walk into a shopping centre and what do I see?
Scary Witches? Ghouls? Ghosts or even more scary the latest Twilight Poster - har har har!!
No much worse than that...................A Christmas Tree!!!
So whether we like it or not the silly season will be upon us quite soon.
This is the time of the year where normal responsible parents tell their children that a total stranger dressed in red who usually lives in the North Pole with little elves will be allowed enter their home by the chimney leaving his sleigh and reindeers on the roof and leave presents by the Christmas tree or better still enter their bedroom and leave it at the foot of their bed!
And that's only if they have behaved themselves!!
Night night honey!!!
Ah Christmas you just got to love it.
When my children were younger it was fairly easy getting into the whole Santa Claus routine, start from Sept 1st
"oh if you are naughty Santa will not bring you anything" or
"Santa Claus will hear about your bad behaviour" and basically keep them dangling until Dec 25th, ah bliss!
And as for the gifts well I kinda cheated a bit!!
Okay a lot, as all their birthdays are in the Spring occasionally they got a really good birthday present so this one got re-wrapped and given by Santa at Christmas - see I was a good at recycling, more green than mean!!!
And it worked like a dream for a while until one day their memories actually started been better than goldfishes.
And then it happens one Christmas morning I hear that awful sentence!!
"oh whoopee I now have two!! I got one for my birthday and now one for Christmas - cool!!"
Then there is the age old dilemma "when do you tell them THE TRUTH!"
There are all sorts of advice on this:
don't tell them they'll figure it out - too risky knowing my lot they could drag this out until they are 30 yrs old!
get their grandparents to tell them - maybe not as you may need them to babysit one day and the kids may refuse to visit the "Santa Killers"
let their friends tell them! - no don't give satisfaction to the little smug brat who goes round the school yard telling everyone in their little whiny voice "your parents buy the gifts................"
Or the best one!
they'll just 'know' - seriously have you met my children?
I decided since I started all of this then I have to be the one to tell the whole truth or as near it as possible- so to speak. I thought the best time to tell was not coming up to Christmas but during the summer so when my eldest son was 9 years old I decided to tell them the origins of Santa Claus with St Nicholas etc however for some reason (I promise no alcohol was involved - I think) we ended up talking about how babies were made and at the end of that summer holiday he knew the facts of life and still believed in Santa Claus (does that sound like a plan gone wrong?).
Then one evening after Christmas and just before his 10th birthday (I kid you not, see I was a really good liar, oops storyteller!), I was running about like a mad woman cooking dinner for 20 people, doing sixty baskets of laundry (slight exaggeration) and cleaning the house (for those who know me that is a BIG EXAGGERATION) and in all of this he decides to ask me questions about Santa Claus, where does he live exactly? what does he eat? does he really exist?and well I just blurted out 'Not Really"(did I mention that I had an almighty bad headache too) he burst into tears!!
My brain went quickly into overdrive (rarely happens but a sight to behold!!)
I dusted down my well prepared speech and told him how parents liked to keep up the tradition of St Nicholas etc etc wiped his tears, calmed him down bribed him not to tell his brother and sister and all was well with the world until he said
"what about the Easter rabbit and Tooth fairy?"
That's when I opened the wine bottle and the rest is a blur!!
So for my second child, my daugther, I decided this time I'll be cool, calm and collected. Waited until Christmas time was done and dusted and picked a time when there was just the two of us together. Coming back in the car from a shopping trip I told her the story of Santa Claus.
At first there was total silence and I thought "oh crap she is going to cry her eyes out!".
Then she started to ask how we managed to hide everything on them.
Suddenly we became the Houdinis of Christmas, how did I hide her bike? her doll's house? (well that was easy I only remembered at 11.45pm on Christmas Eve that the bloody thing had to be put together!! did it quickly while drinking champagne and it still stands today!) however she got a more sober and shorter story.
She was fascinated by the way we hid the gifts etc and couldn't believe that we did that every year and that she never guessed (round applause please!)
Naturally she was then bribed/threatened not to tell her youngest brother.
Now telling the last child will be a tricky one, he still cries about the cat that "ran away" three years ago and also about the turtle that got flattened by a truck four years ago so I am honestly not rushing into this, don't want to be one who kills Christmas.
At present my plan is to whisper it to him as he comes down the aisle at his wedding, any other suggestions?
