Outgrowing Santa Claus

"Mom, I know you're Santa Claus," Belli said this in the car yesterday. I had always known this day would come for her but it still caught me flatfooted. She's twelve and had just learned that her tooth fairy, Blessilda, was me as well.

It has been a tradition in the family and I have kept at it for over 24 years, ever since Maverick was born. Each Christmas, I make a big production of Santa Claus' arrival. Weeks in advance, I ask the children to write him letters with their Christmas wishes. Then, I set out to get their gifts and hide them in the most inconspicuous places. I do such a good job of it that sometimes I forget where I hide them. On the eve itself, I go through crazy lengths to strengthen their belief in him. One of my kookiest moments was actually having our houseboy trod on the roof to simulate Santa approaching the window. Hungover from an evening of revelry, I trudge downstairs at 3 am to arrange the presents. Every year I ask myself why I do it when I could very well be snoring in bed. I stuff the the food that they lay out for him in my mouth and chug the milk. I'm lactose intolerant so it's never pleasant. I could chuck the milk down the sink but how, then, do I get the mouth print on the rim of the glass? Yes, I am that serious.

They would wake up to a marvelous Christmas morning, shrieking and delirious with joy, while I sip my hot tea and will my head to stop throbbing.

We're dead serious about tooth fairies at home as well. They each have their own. They write letters and enclose their teeth and slip them under their pillows. In the dead of night, I creep to their rooms, retrieve the letter and the tooth stealthily, and use my left hand to answer their letters with a glitter pen that I keep solely for that purpose. Then I leave money in place of the tooth with my reply to the letter.

I have created a whole fairy world where little winged people play peanut ball, sleep on clouds shaped like hammocks, go on vacation in the North Clouds (I made this up when once I completely forgot to wake up and take the tooth so I wrote a letter the following night explaining that the fairy went on vacation). Their fairies are named Laxmi, Wandalou, Prospero, and Blessilda. I don't know how I even came up with such names. Their ages range from 749 years old to the high thousands. I have drawn their portraits to show the kids what they look like.

Why do I do all these? I figured childhood is too short and that I should make it as magical as I can. Maverick, Kitty, and Belli have now outgrown Santa and their fairies; three more to go.