Christmas will be different at our house this year...

Tyler has been asking a lot of questions the past couple of years as to whether Santa is really real or not. Because we haven't wanted to really deal with this, we just kept telling him, "Santa stops coming once you stop believing". So I justified that this wasn't really lying since we weren't really saying yes or no. But this year, he couldn't deal with that answer any longer. He came to Chris in tears about a week ago and said he really had a big problem. He couldn't tell Chris what it was though, because it had really serious consequences. After a lot of tears, and gentle prodding, that he could tell us anything, he opened up. "Dad, is Santa real?" Chris asked the usual questions like, why do you ask? Have your friends been talking? What do you think? He said he was afraid of knowing because we had always said that he stops coming, but that he really didn't believe deep down inside. So we asked him if he really truly wanted to know the truth. He said he did. So, we did it. We laid it all out there for him. (Including the truth about the tooth fairy, Easter bunny and the great pumpkin...which Tyler said, "uh, dad, I've never believed in that one.") After it was done, we asked him what made him start to question it in the first place. He gave us that "Duh" look and said, "Uh, flying reindeer dad? Come on." It really broke my heart to realize that my little boy is growing up and that this year, he's in on the secret. :0(

Adios