Poor Santa

Nothing puts me in the holiday spirit quite like throwing away all the must-haves my children passionately petitioned the magical, white-bearded, miracle-worker for last year that have sat untouched since December 29th.

I think I need to set ground rules with Santa this year. He and I already agreed to ban slime, iPhones, and live animals, but who knows what kind of "I changed my mind" remarks, "I forgot about" requests, and "The only thing I really want is the one obscure item on my list Santa thought I didn't really care about" comments my kids will come up with at 11:59pm on Dec. 24th this year.

Poor Santa. He set the bar too high for himself from the get go. Sure, it seemed harmless to reveal to Sue and Jimmy that he had boundless magic and endless access to free labor when Sue and Jimmy were asking for a dolly, a train engine, and an orange in their stockings, but now Pepperlee and Xack want iPads, Robux, and Power Wheels.

And, I hate to say it, all the pressure of bringing joy to mankind by pulling off outrageous requests like it's no big deal sometimes clouds Santa's judgement (beginning with his liberal definition of "nice"). One year he brought my young son with suspect scissor habits a pocket knife and hoverboard fast enough to keep up with highway traffic. For my daughter? Red, staining, goes everywhere but on your lips lipstick and more LOL Dolls to join the little decapitated doll mortuary she calls her toy bin. For my youngest son, he has always brought wonderful gifts that seem like exactly what my son has asked for, but, according to my son, they have minor defects that make them tragically wrong. They're the wrong type, the wrong color, or they just "feel weird".

I wish I could take some pressure off the big guy, but it's too late now. Way back when I could have told my kids Santa was a nice guy who put oranges under pillows on Christmas Eve (unless he forgot and had to do it a few days later instead) like a jolly tooth fairy, but I missed my chance. Oh, well. I am sure it is all worth it to Santa when he bites into one of our thank you cookies that he definitely didn't have to bake for himself.