Santa

Why Santa Will Never Lose His Magic in Our Household

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

Why Santa Will Never Lose His Magic in Our Household (Photo: Photo of a traditional-looking Santa Claus, tipping his hood)

“Do you want to go see Santa?” I asked my kids, standing outside the mall Christmas display. My one-and-a-half year old shook his head vigorously, while my four-year-old (nicknamed Sprout) just said, “No” in the same tone he gives me at bedtime. But that doesn’t mean they dislike Santa – just the mall version. And that’s just fine with me. Instead of forcing my kids to sit on some dude’s lap, we’re finding deeper ways to maintain Santa’s beauty and magic.

In our household, Santa is a complicated person.

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Guest Post: Extending Santa’s Magic by Appealing to the STEM/STEAM Side of Kids’ Curious Minds

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

We have our very first guest post here at We’ll Eat You Up, We Love You So! It’s courtesy of Scott Beller, who is the “Chief Word Nerd” at the blog Raising Nerd. As a completely unabashed nerd myself, I was proud to write a guest post for him last week on inspirational female scientists in movies. He’s returning the favor this week, with a blog post that ties together three of my favorite things: Mystery Science Theater 3000, science and Santa.

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My daughter giggled as she watched the gigantic blue and yellow egg hatch. The glowing blue larva emerged, surrounded by hundreds of worshipping natives on Infant Island. It was coaxed into action by two miniature, telepathic fairies in distress.

My daughter’s eyes widened.

“Is this real?” she asked, giggling some more.

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What I Gave Up for Christmas

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 6 Comments

I already have one of my main New Years’ Resolutions – to simplify. I am quite sick of feeling overwhelmed and exhausted and for a variety of reasons, life will become even busier in the next year. While it isn’t even January yet, I’ve already started applying this philosophy to my life, starting with Christmas. I love Christmas traditions, but I’ve decided that these just aren’t worth the effort – at least not this year.

Merry Christmas!

1) Baking cookies for my co-workers. I like giving my co-workers gifts for the holidays, but between federal ethics requirements and my own cheapness, baked goods are the best bet. However, with only two weekends that we’re actually in town, both filled with other holiday activities, finding the time to do this just wasn’t happening. Ideally, baking cookies is a lovely activity to do with your child, but I’m not giving away anything a two-year-old has helped bake. And cramming it into the three hours between Sprout goes to bed and I do just sounds rushed and unpleasant. While I know my boss likes snickerdoodles, he’ll just need to make them himself this year.

2) Sending out Christmas cards. I always feel like a crappy friend when I start getting Christmas cards and haven’t sent any out myself. I was going to do a photo collage this year, but after both CVS and Walgreens totally screwed up our orders last year, even that seemed like too much work. As we’ll be home for two weeks with grandparents eager to babysit, maybe I’ll send out New Years cards. Or maybe not.

3) Being obsessive about buying local/ethically. I am a huge proponent and fan of buying ethically, especially toys and gifts. But as the mother of a young child who doesn’t have unlimited time or energy to flit around in local boutiques (many of whom don’t want a two-year-old pawing their stuff anyway), I just did the best I could. I tried looking in our local Barnes and Noble and at Powell’s Books online for the specific books I wanted, but neither of them had them. So Amazon it was for those items, as much as I hate their lack of corporate responsibility. I reassured myself that 1) at least I tried, 2) individual actions aren’t the end-all and be-all, and 3) by buying thoughtful gifts, there will be less waste altogether.

4) Not buying all of the gifts myself. I still was the one to pick out the large majority of the gifts, but I actually sent Chris out to purchase at least a couple of them. After all, he’s the one home during the week! It’s a pain to drag a toddler around a store, but it’s still less impossible than me doing it during my work day.

5) Not seeing Santa at the mall. Sprout got to see Santa twice – once at the mall with Chris’s parents without us and at Sesame Place with my parents – which is really enough. Instead, we waved to him as we passed by; he even waved back. It’s all about teaching the kid small pleasures.

6) Elaborate decorations. I’ve never been an elaborate decorator, but I’ve always wished I could be. (Albeit never like my mom, who actually made all of the Christmas ornaments for the entire tree one year.) This year, I stuck some of Sprout’s Christmas books on the coffee table, put Elmo in a mini Santa suit (which is actually for a wine bottle!), and pulled out our wooden nativity. It’s got some holiday cheer and some religious aspect. That’s enough for me.

7) An intolerance for singing stuffed animals. I generally forbid singing toys in my household for their lack of educational value and high level of personal annoyance. But my mother-in-law adores singing animatronics and gifted Sprout a Christmas tree that croons “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” last Christmas. Both of them absolutely love the ridiculous thing. So out it came with the rest of the decorations, along with a piece of my sanity. Sprout’s enthusiasm thankfully dwindled after the first 30 times or so playing it in a row.

8) Feeling guilty for these things. I’m still working on this – as you can see from all of my justifications above – but this is probably the most important one of all. There’s far too much guilt and shame in my life for not living up to my own unrealistic expectations. Like everything else in life, the holidays are exactly what you choose to make them. I’m at least trying to choose peace, hope and joy.

Always Be Yourself. Unless You Can Be Santa; Then Be Santa

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 5 Comments

How can anyone dislike Santa Claus? However, my relationship with him as an adult is a bit ambiguous. While I hate lying, I’m a storyteller at heart. I hate the modern-day commercialism around Santa Claus, but love the magic of the toymaker myth. So I thought I was going to have a lot of heartache about how to treat Santa Claus when Sprout got old enough to understand him. But I think I’ve come upon an approach that makes sense – emphasizing the idea of Santa Claus as a character rather than an actual person.

Always Be Yourself. Unless You Can Be Santa; Then Be Santa-2

It certainly helps that Sprout is the most familiar with Santa as a character rather than a real person. We already read about Santa in books, from ones as simple as Biscuit’s Pet and Play Christmas to as weird as Lemony Snicket’s The Lump of Coal. The un-reality of Santa is emphasized even more by the fact that Santa isn’t even human in all of the books – in Pete the Cat Saves Christmas, he’s a cat, and Merry Christmas, Ollie! features Father Christmas Goose.

Through these stories, we can talk about whatever parts of Santa we want to, instead of the dominant cultural version. We’ll emphasize the idea of Santa as a generous toy giver who brings gifts because he loves people, just as we give each other gifts because we love each other. (And to tie to the actual religious part of Christmas, because people loved Jesus and brought gifts to him.) We won’t touch the “good girls and boys” nonsense with a ten foot pole because I’m already ideologically opposed to using toys as rewards.

Now, distinguishing between a character and a real person sounds terribly naive when talking to a two-year-old. But while little kids have difficulty distinguishing between fantasy and reality, it doesn’t mean that they’re incapable of it. Contrary to 1960s British “moral campaigner” Mary Whitehouse’s position, kids back then did not actually believe that Tom Baker (then playing the Doctor in Doctor Who) was actually drowning for the entire week between a cliffhanger and resolution. Even Sprout, who is only two, knows that characters in books are not “real.”

So when it comes time for him to find out that Santa isn’t a “real” person, I hope that this approach allows us to acknowledge the fundamental fiction of Santa while maintaining the magic and spirit. An excellent book for doing this, which is also had the most heart-breaking first chapter of anything I’ve ever read, is The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, by Julie Lane. (There’s a couple of other books of that name, but this is the best, obviously.) The beautiful part of it is that it roots Santa Claus and the traditions associated with him in tragic, beautiful, real world (albeit still fictional) circumstances while maintaining a little of the mystery.

Besides “Santa as story,” I think it’s also important when the time comes to provide some explanation as to why we’ve been pretending to be Santa this whole time. Fortunately, even that’s rooted in an idea that Sprout understands – cosplay! Because of our foray into costuming for Baltimore Comic Con, he already understands that sometimes adults wear costumes and pretend to be characters because it’s fun. Clearly, people dress as Santa because everyone wants to be him. People dressed as Batman or Groot aren’t actually Batman or Groot, but it’s fun to pretend we are. And who wouldn’t want to be Santa? He gets to give out presents, eat cookies, ride on a sled pulled by flying reindeer, and only works for a month a year (I assume production at the North Pole starts in late November).

No matter how we get there, I want to teach Sprout that we are all Santa for each other. While there’s no single jolly old man in red dropping off presents, we can act in that spirit by giving each other gifts and reaching out to those in need. Instead of Christmas becoming an orgy of consumer receiving, we want to frame it as a gentle season of generosity. And if I can teach him that, the magic of Santa will always be in his life.

Why I Will Never Buy Elf on the Shelf

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 12 Comments

The Elf on the Shelf is more than just an annoyance – it also promotes a lot of terrible values. Here’s why I will never buy Elf on the Shelf. 

Why I Will Never Buy Elf on the Shelf (Photo: Picture of the Elf on the Shelf with a No Sign Through It)

Wandering the bookstore in December, looking for gifts, I really hope that my four-year-old doesn’t notice – or at least doesn’t care about – the Elf on the Shelf prominently displayed by the check-out counter. While I know it’s a beloved tradition in many families, I kind of hate the thing. Besides its aesthetics, it stands for a bunch of values that are the opposite of what I want to teach my kids.

For those who have had the good fortune of avoiding the Elf on the Shelf, it’s stuffed elf that comes with a book. The main idea is that the Elf is a spy for Santa who watches the kids all day and reports back every night. Each morning, the parent puts the Elf in a different place, some of which involve increasingly complicated scenarios. While I normally love toys that come with books, the only thing the Elf on the Shelf is good for is these hilarious photos that reveal the Elf in some very compromised situations.

Here’s why I will never buy the Elf on the Shelf:

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