I have never received a present from Santa Claus. No, it wasn’t because I was a naughty kid. Ok, sometimes i was, but I was good too. I promise!
We celebrated Christmas and the coming of baby Jesus in our family, but all the presents under the tree were from my parents. Both of my parents grew up in Vietnam. Santa didn’t exist for them. I don’t think they had Christmas trees either. Somehow they adapted the costume of Christmas trees but totally missed Santa.
I’m not sure how I first learned about him. Perhaps it was by watching one of the many specials that air on television during the holiday season. Or maybe I realized that the mall Santa was definitely. . .not real. It’s quite odd that we didn’t receive parents from Santa Claus. During our early years, my parents took both my sister and I for Santa pictures at the local mall. Maybe it was because they thought they were supposed to. We have some cute but embarrassing Polaroids from back then. (Remember Polaroids?)
Both hubby and I have decided to play Santa for our kids. I’m not sure who has more fun, us or Sophia. Every year we bake cookies for Santa. They might be from store-bought cookie dough, but we baked them ourselves! We also leave out juice for “Santa” along with carrots for the reindeer. (Our Santa’s helper doesn’t like milk, so we leave out juice.)
Santa also has his own special wrapping paper. Every year, I let Sophia pick out which wrapping paper Santa should use to wrap up her gifts. That way if she accidentally sees the wrapped gifts, we can just play it off that we’re helping out Santa.
So far none of the presents are wrapped! In fact, I had most of the kids’ gifts shipped to my sister’s home. I wouldn’t want to ruin Santa for Sophia quite yet!
How does Santa help out in your home?