When the Bell Stopped Ringing

WARNING: IF YOU ARE A CHILD OR HAVE A CHILD READING OVER YOUR SHOULDER, DO NOT CONTINUE WITH THIS POST. PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF CHRISTMAS, DO NOT CONTINUE READING THIS POST.





I am an eldest child, and growing up, my four best friends were also all eldest children (what are the odds of that, hey?). That probably created a lot of interesting play-date dynamics that I was way too young to understand at the time, but as it relates specifically to this post, it meant that none of us had any older brothers or sisters paving the way for us, telling us what to do and how to think, giving us the "low down" on how life really is, or spoiling any childhood myths and fantasies. Given that we were all in the same boat, each of us depended solely on our parents to draw the line between reality and fiction, and what kind of parent is going to sit their kid down at some arbitrarily determined age and tell them that, after years of elaborate and deliberate lying, Santa Claus doesn't really exist? (If you are that kind of parent, start saving money now for your child's therapy fund...) I was an imaginative and romantically-notioned child anyway, so the story of Santa Claus was absolutely plausible to me; I'm not sure I even thought to question it.

Join me, then, in an ordinary December afternoon in my fifth grade classroom. I imagine we had just finished math or reading and were in the process of putting our workbooks away when my teacher began passing out sheets of paper to each of us and told us that we were going to do a special project. I looked closely at my sheet of paper and noticed that it was handwritten and pretty poorly written at that. In fact, it was nearly illegible with incomplete sentences and slanting lines--a nightmare for a born grammar-snob/language-lover like myself. But I also noticed little candy cane and reindeer drawings in the margins, and the letter itself was addressed "Dear Santa." As it turned out, it was some kid's Christmas letter to Santa (a very young kid, I hoped). Just as I was wondering how this letter mistakenly got into my teacher's pile of papers, my teacher said "Today, class, we have the honor of answering Miss Johnson's Kindergarten class' letters to Santa." Huh. But...I mean...why would...well...why would I need to answer one of Santa's letters for him? I looked around at my classmates to share in a moment of confusion, only...they were all hunched over their desks, already busily at the task of answering Santa's letters as though it was the most normal, mundane task. My confusion was my own.

Well. No need to belabor the obvious. The wondrous, magic-filled story of Santa Claus slowly, painfully melted for me right there in the middle of my fifth grade classroom. I was genuinely devastated, and most humiliatingly, I couldn't talk to anyone about it because evidently EVERYONE already knew. I didn't even want to bring it up with my four best friends or my parents lest I find out I was REALLY the only one who didn't know and further make a fool of myself. It was a bitter Christmas for me that year. Sigh.

But alas. Here I am "elaborately and deliberately" perpetuating the very same story with my own little daughter because despite the disappointment that inevitably lies in her future, I think a little magic and a little fantasy does a child's growing soul good. And I know that at the end of the day, there's another far more important Christmas Story that will never disappoint...