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It was Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank, otherwise known as our local, where we went for a blustery Christmas drink in the garden with some of our neighbours. The kids ran around hitting each other with sticks, quickly descending into a Lord of the Flies where the adults were present, but too tired to intervene. I had a Heineken Zero but still managed to knock it over, so it was like being drunk again. I'm sleeping badly again and all of these days are passing in a blur. I felt like a spectator not a participant, but then that's often the case when I have slept well.
The kids were super excited of course, but the cracks in Phoebe's belief are showing. I think she knows it's all nonsense but still wants to believe. She wanted to google to find out where Santa visits first, but I said she couldn't. "Is that because you're worried I will see someone saying that Santa doesn't exist?" she pointedly asked. "No," I lied, "But the internet is full of people lying about stuff so someone might say that." I was lying and telling the truth at the same time. I would have thought the conspiracy theory people on the internet are probably actually arguing that Santa is real after all. We all took the red pill (or whichever one it is) and believed the man when he said it was made up. But then who puts the presents there? And who eats the mince pie? C'mon sheeple.
It is interesting to witness the progression from belief to disillusionment. It's a steady journey which means that it doesn't hurt too badly. You go through a year or two when you know there's something up, but are still not ready to get out. Phoebe's logical side is questioning it, but her dreams remain unbroken for now. Ernie is 100% in and obsessed with the Santa tracker. And a 6 year old's Christmas is one of the best. Mine was half a century ago, but I remember all the Christmasses around that time. Was it 50 years ago that I got a home made fort (cowboys and indians were all the rage then)? Or when we glimpsed Santa in his red coat coming down the stairs as we peeped out of bedroom doors? (was it dad in a red dressing gown? Disbelief was suspended.) Or when my brother persuaded us all to sneak downstairs early to take one present?
Like Ernie tonight I was too excited to sleep, but finally drifted off. Doubtless as he will tomorrow I went into my parents' room much too early in the hope that we could go down and see if Santa had been.
Even once we knew it was an elaborate ruse, the family still kept putting up the pillow cases - I wonder what year we stopped? Certainly I had a pillow case well into my teenage years. You want to recapture the magic. You can be a child again, even though you are still really a child, but you don't have to pretend you're not.
For now we have two believers, though one will no longer be so next year and she'll probably blab to her brother - but he'll still want to believe so he still will.
Tonight we watched Die Hard and put the turkey in and took part in th present con job (or are we the ones being conned and Santa is real, just like the men on the internet say - who bites the carrots otherwise? We don't have a reindeer). I am able to quote nearly the whole film now, even if consciously I don't really know what's coming up, it still comes out of my mouth. I still have to google to see if the man in reception is Huey Lewis or not though - in my head I know it's not, but my heart wants to believe and every Christmas I wonder, before the internet tells me it's not. But the internet is full of lies. If you believe enough then it will be Huey Lewis.
