The Fat Man Cometh

The other day a friend of mine walked in the front door to this scene: His wife was on one side of the room, his daughter was sitting on the couch with a single tear rolling down her cheek. His wife looked up and said, "She was going to find out sooner or later..." And this is the moment that even the most courageous of us might turn right around and walk back out the door.
In the pitched battle for the hearts and minds of children everywhere, the existence of S. Claus stands as a kind of spiritual Waterloo. On Friday in my fourth grade class I doodled a quick but jolly bearded man on the board as I waited for them to finish their spelling test. From one corner of the room I heard a delighted squeal: "Santa!" The immediate responses ranged from "Yeah!" to "Duh," but soon turned to "You don't really believe in Santa, do you?" The line was drawn. You could have cut the tension with a Ginsu knife. "Santa Claus is so real." "He's your mom and dad." "I'll believe in Santa Claus if I wake up on Christmas morning and find a roomful of presents."
Then the other shoe dropped: "Mister Caven, is there such a thing as Santa Claus?" I tried desperately to remember the Kris Kringle defense from "Miracle on 34th Street" or the eloquence of the reply to Virginia's quandary. Nothing came. I considered my options carefully, since I make it a practice never to lie to my kids. I decided to steer wide of the growing imbroligio, "We still have a spelling test to check, don't we? And we sure don't want to have to come back from lunch and check a spelling test before the party, right?" Santa or no, all the kids could agree on an afternoon free of curriculum, and so I was saved the fate of ten year old imaginations for another year.
When I came home that night, I saw my son's carefully addressed envelope to "Santa's Castle, North Pole." He was careful to include additional postage to make certain that his letter got to its destination. This is a very clever eight year old (eight and a half, he will remind me). I wonder how long we will work to keep this balloon in the air. When will the reckoning come? Having an older brother was a blessing and a curse on this matter, since I was in on the secret a little earlier, but the magic was done as a result. My son is reading at a fifth grade level, doing multi-digit multiplication, and shows up as an all-around extremely clever kid. Should I be surprised or concerned by his lack of suspicion, this seeming perceptual void? Well, here what the doubting Susan Walker (little Natalie Wood) had to say at the end of "Miracle on 34th Street" - now that I have the luxury of researching such things: "I believe... I believe... Even though it's silly, I believe."