“Oh, and you must not forget the Kris Kringle. The child must believe in him until she reaches the age of six.”
“Mother, I know there are no ghosts or fairies. I would be teaching my child foolish lies.”
Mary spoke sharply. “You do not know whether there are not ghosts on earth or angels in heaven.”
“I know there is no Santa Claus.”
“Yet you must teach the child that these things are so.”
“Why? When I, myself, do not believe?”
“Because,” explained Mary Rommely simply, “the child must have a valuable thing which is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which things live that never were. It is necessary that she believe. She must start out by believing in things not of this world. Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, the child can reach back and live in her imagination. …”
“The child will grow up and find out things for herself. She will know that I lied. She will be disappointed.”
“That is what is called learning the truth. It is a good thing to learn the truth one’s self. To first believe with all your heart, and then not to believe, is good too. It fattens the emotions and makes them stretch. When as a woman life and people disappoint her, she will have had practice in disappointment and it will not come so hard. …”
The night that Francie Nolan was born; conversation between her mother and grandmother. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, page 84-85.
This is a HUGE discussion in our household. Taylor’s parents didn’t want to lie so he lost out on the magic of Santa. I, on the other hand, loved it! I wanted to say there was a Santa, he didn’t. When I read this book,this passage jumped out at me like nothing else. Yes! This makes sense! What a perfect blog post. And I just realized that I am still subscribed to your personal blog!
Natasha, yeah I was surprised to see your comment a few weeks ago. I hadn’t realized that this blog got “out there.” But you’re more than welcome to read along on this blog too! While must husband isn’t particular about the Santa thing, I think he really just doesn’t care! So it’s up to me to create the magic! I look forward to it…
When our first child was little, we thought we should not decieve him about Santa. Out logic was that if we taught him to believe in Santa and that turned out to be a lie, then he would doubt other true things that we taught him. (Was George Washington or Jesus a lie too? ) So we explained that there was not one Santa. Santa was the Christmas clown, and anyone could be a Santa. Then came the fateful day when we were at church practicing for a party that included an appearance by Santa. He came running to me excitedly “Mom! Santa is here! I just saw him in the boys’ bathroom! And YOU thought he wasn’t real!”
mom, great story!