Greetings all,
As a parent, i found the exciting anticipation of sharing my childhood memories - the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Santa Claus - as seen through my own children's eyes, as much fun as it was when i was the one checking for a coin in place of my tooth, an Easter Egg hunt & checking my Santa Stocking.
My mother still believes in all of the above, yes in her 70s & put up a good front to my father who loathed any praise going towards fairies, bunnies or Father Christmas in a passive aggressive fashion. We ignored him, we kept up believing in the stories for our mother more than anything, it brought her such joy. I get where Dad was coming from, once you've been up past midnight blowing up inflatable pool toys, construcing a trampoline & putting training wheels on new bikes with a torch in the dark of your garden, you kind of think, why should Santa get the credit?? My husband agrees & let's just say . . . Santa gives a token offering to our children . . . so like my father - my husband relishes in the glory of being an awesome gift giver.
So what's this 'lying' all about?? Sure my children have asked "is the Easter Bunny real??" I say "i think it's a lovely story" & they're still happy with that. To all of you with really little ones, beware, there is always some awful child at school with older siblings who'll take sheer delight in ruining your child's dreams.
I think it's a good lesson in children learning the subtle art of happy-white-lies & sweet-harmless-stories, they make you feel good.
I never put too much thought into carrying on the tradition of the 'big three' until a mother at my eldest daughter's preschool (looong time ago) answered for her daughter - when i asked if she was excited about Santa coming (harmless small talk to 3 year olds in December) with "i don't lie to my children". Oh wow, that was strong, harsh & blunt. Fair enough, it's your child, but it did trigger my child to ask what a lie was & ask why Santa wasn't going to their house. So in a way it opened up that "this is how we do things in our family" versus the differences in other families traditions, beliefs, religions & so on.
Anyway, food for thought, a conversation starter. I promised myself to answer my children's questions as clearly & honestly as possible but still love these 'stories' even if the Tooth Fairy is sending us broke.
Enjoy your chocolates, we went high quality/ low quantity this year as the children did request the Easter Bunny to stick to Lindt chocolate. Sure, you get one egg each then + the mandatory Lindt bunny with a tiny egg hunt of those mini eggs. Love Posie
EDIT: Thanks to Vanessa from NessaKnits for correcting my title where i had written 'like' instead of 'lie', which is a nice typo but wrong with a capital R. Blame the chocolate & a speedy post effort in order to catch a gorgeous store across town before it closed this afternoon. Shopping on Easter Sunday, i know, a gorgeous homewares store as religious as me, but i needed more oilcloth, it was an emergency.
