Conversations with a kid: Ashton's philosophy on Santa Clause.

The other day while visiting at grandma's house, Ashton suddenly and randomly blurted out,

"You know, I can believe in Santa Clause because he makes perfect sense, but its the elves that I have a hard time believing in. I mean, all these little tiny people in funny hats and tights running around? It doesn't make any sense at all."

(Yes, and that makes perfect sense Ash.)

Ashton at her Christmas choir concert. 2010

Conversations with a kid: It's going to be a series!

I'm going to be starting a new series on my new and improved blog, hopefully to be written every Thursday, called "Conversations with a kid".  I've put a lot of thought into this little endeavor and I have to say that I am quite excited about it. I must be excited because as some of you know I never commit to anything unless I'm excited about it. So without further ado, the first entry in what will undoubtedly be a long series of blog entries.

Conversations with a kid:

Matthew's heart to heart moment

As the Roane family was just finishing up their dinner Matthew, who is five years old and still speaks with a pretty heavy lisp suddenly blurts out, "Daddy, you know how you will get old one day and then you'll die?"

Nate, steadies himself for what he thinks is sure to be a difficult conversation. When he feels prepared to address the topic and calm his little boy's fears about the inevitable he answers.

"Yes, Matthew. But you know that won't be for a very very long time. You will be a grown man with a family of your own when I finally die."

"Yeah daddy, I know, but you know how you will die one day?"

"Yes, I do know."

Matthew's expression is thoughtful. "Well, when you do get old and die, in a long long time, I'm going to take all your clothes and suits and wear them."

(I hope he puts that in the eulogy.)

I saw mommy kissing Santa Clause, then I went to therapy for five years after.

I was out shopping at the mall with my mother the other day when, while rummaging through my favorite store, the christmas song, "I saw mommy kissing Santa Clause", began to play over the system. This one wasn't the typical version of the song you are used to hearing; sung by a child, but rather done very rock-and-roll style and sung by a sultry sounding woman. It may have been Gwen Stephanie, but I'm not positive about that either. Anyway, fast forward to that evening, Nate and I were trying to get the dinner cleaned up and kids to bed, all the while "I saw mommy kissing santa clause" was still playing over and over in my head like an internal broken record. Then it got me thinking.

Everyone (myself included) always thinks that song is so cute and funny, but what if that really happened to some kid? that would not be cute or funny, it would be terribly tragic and disturbing to that poor youngster.

Imagine yourself at seven or eight years old and you still (spoiler alert) believe in the jolly Saint Nick. You sneak out of bed to catch a glimpse of the bringer of toys and happiness first hand only to find him totally macking on none other than your own mother! It would be terribly confusing. How would you know at such a tender age that it was your dad dressed in a costume?

Would Christmas ever be the same again? Would you ever be able to look at your mother the same again? I think not. You would probably despise Christmas. You would never care for any of the presents brought by that evil man who everyone believes to be so wonderful and giving, and only you know the awful truth; that he's nothing more than a fat red-suited home wrecker.

What about when your parents take you to see Santa the next year at the mall or whatever and tell you you're supposed to go sit on his lap? I think if it were me I'd probably sit on his lap and then scratch his twinkly little eyes out!

Maybe I've given all of us something to think about this year. I'm certainly not going to ask Nate to dress as Santa Clause just in case one of our kids decide to sneak out of bed and catch us in the living room together getting our mack on. Either that or I'll just not kiss him while he's wearing a santa suit, but I'm pretty sure Nate's not going to put a santa suit on at all in this life time so I just won't really worry about it.

Hopefully, the next time I go to the mall shopping at Christmas time I won't be overly analytic about the silly Christmas songs they play in the stores because thinking about this has been terribly exhausting.