Yesterday, stuck together at the dining room table in front of the lone window AC unit with temps at 99, my son set down his Slurpee and asked, “Dad? Is Santa Claus a god?”
This made me very happy, as not 24 hours earlier I’d been telling a friend I was worried about persistent Santa Claus acceptance among my 8 year old twins. I had gauged that the twins were not even beginning to contemplate the challenges presented by the commonly accepted narrative, and had expressed to my friend that while I at age eight had demanded some reconciliation from my mom on this stuff until I got it, my own eight year old twins hadn’t expressed a contrary thought about it yet. The timing I just described — 24 hours since I patted my young self on the back — and the conversation that follows, don’t stretch the truth in any intentional way.
First I said, “wow! That’s an interesting theory!”
“I hear that word a lot, Theory,” Andrew said. “What is it? I think, probably, Theory is an important word. Because I keep hearing it.”
I told him it’s a great word and it means a proposed explanation of something complicated based on a bunch of observations all put together. I was thinking that I’m a very cool dad for talking about theory so much that my kid hears the word a lot.
“I heard it on the Avengers, like Nick Theory,” he explained.
“Oh. That’s Fury. F, fffffury, while the word I said is Th, Thhhheory.”
“Ohhhh.”
“He’s not a God,” his twin sister said, but with some hesitation. “Right dad? Well, actually, dad, tell us: is Santa Claus real?”
“What do you think?” I laughed.
She eyed me with suspicion as she began to talk slowly, perhaps watching for my face to crack.
“I think he’s like, maybe not real exactly. Like probably it’s God who makes the presents show up, or something, and then we need a reason for the presents, so Santa is maybe made up for that. And then lots of people dress up as him all over at the same time.”
I capitalize God when my daughter talks about God because she’s talking about the God of her catholic studies—she attends a catholic private school and she had her first holy communion a couple weeks ago, though I was not invited in spite of her telling me she wanted me there but didn’t know the date.
I do not capitalize it when my son is talking about gods, because, while he also had his first holy communion two weeks ago in some kind of two for one coronavirus season special, he does not attend a catholic school, and is talking about god as in Thor.
My 3 year old jumped in: “No! No. Mom is Santa! Mom and Dad is Santa!”
Vivian laughed, “Mom is not Santa!!”
“No!” He yelled louder and stood up on his chair and set his slurpee down and held his hands out like he’s conducting. “Mom AND dad is Santa! Mom and Dad ARE Santa!”
His little hands flung about, but such confidence without further explanation was dismissed by the older children. Though I sure enjoyed it. Not for a second did he look to me for any validation of his theory.
I told them I’m glad they are all coming up with theories and they should keep trying to figure it out. My daughter then began drilling into me with her eyes and saying “Daaaaad. Tell me. Tell me! Is Santa Realll?”
“You are right that there is a big secret about Santa that parents know but kids don’t know. It’s not as exciting as some of your ideas but it’s also very fun in some other ways for parents and kids. And if you keep digging and bothering your parents for the secret you will figure it out. But there is one really big rule.”
“What!”
“Once you know the secret, you’re not allowed to tell anyone except your own kids! Not your friends, not anyone.”
“What’s the secret!”
“And there is this one other rule.”
“What!!!”
“If your parents are divorced, you have to ask both of your parents before you can be told. Have you asked your mom?”
They admitted they had not, and then my daughter asked if I had just made that second rule up, and I admitted that I had but that it stood nevertheless.
In final review I asked them to restate their theories. Vivian summarized the 3-year-old’s idea with a laugh and then described hers — the one where the Santa story is a manufactured explanation for the spontaneously occurring observed arrival of presents.
“And Andrew? What do you think?”
And he said, “I think probably he’s Nick Fury.”