Santa's Been Hitting The Eggnog

'Tis the season where daddy and papa do everything in their power to prevent Kensington from running into imposter Santa's. That has meant distracting her while in various malls, excluding her from the class picture with Santa and ditching community functions prior to K-Kringle entering the room. Kensi is very observant - she can spot the tiniest flaw in anything. Seeing a Santa that is different from the one whose lap she's sat on for four years would stir up questions that Papa isn't ready to answer.

You see, the one thing we don't do is lie to Kensington. Ever.  So this year when the question came, I got a lump in my throat.




Kensington: Papa, is Santa real?
Papa: [Avoid. Avoid. Avoid] Hey sweetie, are you hungry?
K: Papa, is Santa real?
P: We're about to go into the store, do you want a treat?
K: Papa, I'm asking you a question. Is Santa real?

Seeing the Santa across the parking lot, I now understand why I got the question.

P: No, Kensi, that man over there is not Santa Claus. He's just dressed up to be festive. You'll see many people dressed up this month as Santa. Remember a couple months ago when it was Halloween and everyone in your class dressed up and you had 32 Elsa's in your school. It was pretend. There can't be 32 Elsa's, can there be?

This seemed to stop the questioning and she moved on to tell me that yes, she did indeed want a treat from the store.

But then today I got the question again, but it was different. It was from her heart. As we waited in line for almost an hour to see Father Christmas, she grabbed my hand, looked up at me and quietly asked, "Papa, is he the real Santa?"

I knelt down and gave my little munchkin a hug, propped her on my knee, and pointed into his direction. "Baby, every year you come here and you sit on Santa's lap. Look into his eyes, that's the Santa you ask for special presents and every year you get what you've asked for. I believe in him. I believe he's magical and if you want to believe in him with me, then we can go and tell him you've been a very good girl and you can tell him the three things you'd like to receive this year."

With that, she grabbed my hand and shook it and said, "deal."

She went up to Santa, told him that she's been a very good girl this year and would like a locket, a pogo stick that is just her size so she can't fall off of it, and a nutcracker. He leaned into her, took his gloved finger and tipped her nose, and gave her a wink. When she came back over to me, she motioned for me to bend over so she could say something and she whispered, "He is real papa, I know it."

Unfortunately,  it looked like Santa had hit the eggnog pretty hard last night by the looks of the picture. In each one that we took, it seemed like he'd been out all night with Blizten. Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging him. That reindeer has drank me under the table a couple times myself!