I Want to Believe.

I realized just today that I forgot to take the toddler to see Santa at the mall, something I really wanted to do. I forgot because it's just not in my head yet to do things like that. After all, it's not exactly a family tradition.

My first memory of Santa was looking at the Christmas ads in the paper, ads filled with drawings of this fat guy wearing red clothes. I could read the ads, so I must have been in the first grade.

I asked my parents who was this? They explained it to me, how he was a made up person who supposedly brought presents to good children at Christmas, but (and this was important now, so listen closely, little Jennifer) he wasn't real. He was made up, pretend, and not real. But I couldn't tell my friends that; their parents taught them that Santa was real and if I told them what I knew I'd make everyone very sad.

I asked my mother once if she'd believed in Santa when she was a kid. Oh, yes, she'd believed in Santa. Had dad? Yes, he'd believed in Santa, too. Why, then, did they not want us to believe in Santa?

"Well," Mom explained, "we were worried that if you believed in Santa Claus, when you found out he wasn't real, maybe you'd think God wasn't real either."

Huh? I thought that over for awhile and then asked her, "Why did you think we'd react like that? Did you or Dad think that when you found out about Santa?"

She tilted her head to one side, searching for the memory. "No," she said, sounding surprised. "We didn't."

"Then why did you think we would?" I was not feeling happy with her and it showed in my voice.

"I don't know."

And that was it. That's the most my parents have ever been able to tell me about why they taught us not to believe in Santa. And even nearing the end of my fourth decade I still haven't been able to fully forgive them for that. They took a huge part of childhood away from us, and they didn't even have a good reason. Wow.

There's no question of our three believing in Santa. The teen still pretends to believe, and we're currently teaching the toddler about it. Which is difficult because I don't know how it's done. I know the stories, I know the theory about how this works, but I don't know the nuts and bolts of it and that frustrates me.

My husband is having to lead the way. He knows how to do Santa presents, how to talk about Santa and tell stories, how to explain how the magic works. I stand by, silent and envious, wishing I had the background he does in this. What was it like to have believed in something so positive and generous? What was it like when my husband found out Santa's just a symbol, not a reality? What is it like to have believed in magic?

I tried one Christmas to pretend that I believed in Santa. My parents were very concerned and had a long talk with me about how he isn't real and did I understand that? I told them I did, and quit pretending. The lecture took all the fun out of it.

But I still want to believe. Maybe, if I watch my children closely enough, I can figure out how.