A few years back my wife started the habit of giving gifts to our kids on Christmas. It sort of became tradition in our house and every year we went through the process of getting gifts for the kids, hiding them through the day and stuff them in those funny socks in the night when the kids were asleep.
While the look of happiness on their faces in the morning was priceless, their questions were hard to answer.
Where does Santa live? Where is his gift factory? Why doesn’t he stay back and meet us?
My Wife quite enjoyed cooking up the Santa stories but me, being me, always resented these tall tales.
I had frequent arguments with wifey, about leading the kids on in this manner, my argument being that we would have to tell them the truth someday and her argument being “shut up or no dinner”, so she won.
The last Christmas I finally decided to let the cat out of the bag.
The kids are getting older and they are demanding (wishing for) gifts which neither fitted their Santa socks nor my budget. What kid wishes for a Rs. 1 lac laptop. Free mil raha hain to kuch bhi mango??
Anyways, I called both the kids on the D Day and sat them down with a very solemn face.
I told them that Santa was not real and that the gifts they were getting for Christmas were actually bought by Me and their Mom and we used to sneak them into their room while they were sleeping.
They both looked at each other with one of the most mischievous looks I have ever seen.
“Dad”, said the elder one, “We already figured that a few years back. Do you think we actually believe you when you say that a red suited man flies around in the night on a reindeer drawn wagon?”
“So why didn’t you let us know that?”, I asked.
The younger one chirped in, “Then you would have stopped giving us the gifts”
They ran off happily into their room with the younger one telling the older one, “You know, I don’t think we should have told Dad that we knew. Now he will get smarter”.
I am now wondering if I should be happy that my, yet to be teenage, kids have already started developing a rational thinking mind or if I should be worried that they are a couple of scoundrels who don’t think twice before conning their own Dad 😠
Disclaimer: All those people who still believed in Santa please don’t read this post. 😝
The Desi Cracked Pot 