Yes, Jamie, There is a Santa Claus

Today, Lisa Belkin was kind enough to indulge me again on her New York Times Motherlode blog. This time, I wrote an essay about Santa Claus, and about how every year a certificate comes in the mail that puts Jamie "on the top of Santa's list". I expected to receive the "Way to set your kid up for the real world!" comments; I have to say, I wasn't expecting quite so many. Read it below, and feel free to add your own two cents....

It’s Silly, but I Believe

Yesterday we questioned Santa. Today we defend him.

Sort of.

In the first of two guest posts today from parents who want their children to believe, Rachel Aydt wonders how long the magic should continue, and whether there’s such a thing as believing too deeply.

YES, JAMIE, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS

Four years ago I stumbled into a way to have Santa Claus send my now 7-year-old son Jamie a personalized letter, hand-stamped from the North Pole. Every year it’s delivered in a parchment-colored envelope addressed to him in an ornate font, and has a vintage picture of Santa swirling about on the background as if it were magic itself. Details dropped into the letter always an added layer of mystery: Santa always seems to know whether we will be waking up on Christmas morning in Kinderhook, N.Y., Philadelphia or even Florida, certainly a more challenging spot for a reindeer and sleigh to visit than the northern East Coast. He also knows which friends, pets or cousins will be around. “Be sure to tell Max…Spunky… Davis and Isabel… that if I don’t get a chance to write to them, I’ll drop by their house as well.” The letter arrives after Thanksgiving, and around that time he perks up about me checking the mail in the lobby of our apartment building when his school bus rolls home at 3 p.m.

That first year I discovered that you could also send an official “Good List Certificate” which arrives in a separate, larger envelope. The 8 1/2 by 11 heavy stock document is pretty swank with its shiny gold and crawling holly-berry borders and Jamie’s name swirled around in calligraphy. The thing is even hand signed by “Alfonso Elfonso, Chief Elf.” Suffice it to say that four years have gone by, and Jamie has managed to remain “at the top of Santa’s List” each successive year.

I’ve tried to teach Jamie not to brag about this incredible knack he has for making it to the top of Santa’s list. Last year, my lesson didn’t take, and subsequently a teacher told him that the list goes sideways, which means many kids are on the top. He came home quite flummoxed about this clear mistake, and with some new reassurances the matter was closed.

Another year has come and gone. Last week, as he was jumping up and down for joy after checking the mail, he was climbing the four flights of stairs to our apartment when I heard him say breathlessly: “Out of six billion people on Earth, I made it to the top of the list again! Mommy, how did I do it?” After being hit with the concern that I’d taken it too far and there was no going back, I considered his question as if it were etched truth. There was the bad chemistry he had with another boy in his classroom earlier in the school year that led to some parent and teacher contact, and he worked hard to overcome his entanglements with a boy whose bravado could be attributed to coming to a new school after his own parochial school had been shut down.

“Well, you give people second chances,” I said, and explained how proud I am of how he and the boy are friendly again.

“And you work really hard on your homework even when you don’t want to.” I was on a roll.

“And I gave a poor person my allowance in Paris,” he continued.

Yes, I thought, you did drop a Euro in a hat while we were in that outdoor market. This back-and-forth commentary went on for a bit, and by the time we reached our fifth floor landing, he was well convinced that there had been no mistake; he had done it again. There were other things I didn’t think I needed to go into at the moment that for me put him at the top of the list, mainly that he’s thriving in his first year in a full-inclusion classroom setting after being in a self-contained special-ed classroom since he was 3.

Yesterday, Jamie came home from school and said, “I’m worried about my best friend [they're all his 'best friend' these days] M. because he doesn’t believe in a lot of things.”

“Really, like what?”

“He doesn’t believe in Santa.” My heart sank. This is the year, I hear, that many kids have their bubble burst.

“That’s so sad, Jamie. Maybe Santa doesn’t come to his house.” The moment that left my lips, I regretted saying it.

“But M is a good boy! What happens when Santa doesn’t come to your house?”

I thought about this again, as if it were truth etched in stone, and thought of the “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” letter. I didn’t have an answer for him that could sound as certain as I would have liked, because he’s right, M. is an amazing child, and Santa should come to his house. So I said something along the lines of, “I think you have to believe in Santa for him to come.” Maybe we’ll take Jamie to the giant, red, quite official looking “Believe” mailbox at Macy’s, which I believe is located somewhere near the overzealous perfume sprayers. Suspicion looms now, but the spell hasn’t been broken, and I have a few tools left in the woodshed to scrap together another year or two.

“Mom, can people get on top of the good list when they’re 30? Or 35?”

“I think that might be a record, Jamie.”

“Do I have the record now?”

“Sure, why not?”

Five days and counting

This Saturday, we will hand keys to our apartment over to two French strangers, Sara and Elliot. We'll take their keys, and head off to JFK International, where we'll hop on an Aer Lingus flight to Dublin, then to Paris, then make our way to Monmartre, which we'll call home for six weeks. I haven't ever been out of New York for six weeks in the seventeen years I've lived here, and while I love Paris, I think it's a bit odd that I've gone and picked another major city to prop myself up against for my big New York City breakaway.

That said, there are side trips planned. We've booked our TGV high speed tickets to Marseilles, and rented a car (an automatic) to head to Normandy where we'll explore the D-Day beaches and check out the Halley's comet embroidered on the Bayeux tapestries. We've bought our Ryanair tickets to Rome, where we'll stay with my parents for two nights in Anzio before gathering them up to head to Rome's Trastevere neighborhood for another couple of nights. After that, I'm not sure what we'll do. Catch trains up the coast, stop off in Genoa, and snake our way through some Alps and head back to Paris again? Or buy some airplane tickets back to Paris from some northern Italian point, and chill out for the last 10 days or so?

Six weeks sounds like forever, but I know it will fly. I'm proud that this started as a little seed of a wild idea and has grown to fruition-- now I need to disperse this energy into other things I'd like to see happen in our lives.

This trip feels like a celebration of sorts for me; Jamie's just turned seven, and is moving from a fairly restrictive 12-person special ed classroom setting to full-inclusion with his own Assistant Teacher next year. I'm feeling inspired by his progress, enough so to embark on this kind of trip. He's always traveled well. He loves looking out the window of trains and cars, and in a way, perhaps having an only child has made this scope of a trip easier for us, and him, to handle. Wherever we land, we're a little threesome, and this brings a sense of home anywhere. I'll bring a few fidget toys, plenty of art supplies, and sugar free gum to prepare for his hard times so he has something to ground him if he gets overstimulated. I'll keep museum trips to a minimum. I've been reading up on Parisian playgrounds, and this time around I'll let that take center stage. A pony ride here; a French puppet show there; a trip or two up the Eiffel Tower for good measure, with plenty of Nutella crepes along the way. What more does any kid need?

I look forward to our downtime there, and hope to blog a bit along the way. Bon soir!

Rare Insomnia

A fresh cold is keeping me awake. I have Nyquil, but the last time I drank it I felt as though I were waking up next to the toilet after the most idiotic college party ever to be thrown, and so it shall remain tightly sealed on my bathroom's window ledge.

I haven't blogged for a few weeks. It's not that I have nothing to say, it's that I don't understand this part about blogging yet: how does one write without a theme? Were I to develop one, it might have to do with what I miss when I walk down the streets in New York. Day in and out, butcher paper slaps windows with the ubiquitous "lost our lease" or "retail space for rent" scrawls. These stories are well-documented and practically a cliche now. 

What they would read were I hanging them would be a different matter. "Jamie's best friend moved away from this huge apartment complex with the turtle sculpture in the playground." Or, "Sometimes I desperately miss the old people that are rapidly dying on my block." Hank, who showered Jamie with toys every holiday with money he didn't have to spend after dialysis. Marva, who brought Kayla to his third birthday party, in the rain, before any one else arrived. Maritza, who invited us to every party she threw and who used to lean out of her window and shout to me 'He's gonna be a football playah!', her love birds twittering away in the background. Little Sarah, who spent her entire life on the block, went to the Church of the Nativity every day, and pushed her own groceries till the ripe old age of 90-something. And most recently, Albert, the Cooper Square elevator operator whose smile lit up the whole block.

East 4th Street, between Bowery and 2nd Avenue,  is changing so quickly, and casual passers-by can't tell just by Lost Our Lease signs in the neighborhood. Goodnight, all.