Maggie: "Is Santa real, or is it just the parents who put the gifts under the tree? Because Maddi Gribbs said it's just the parents, and she's a fifth-grader. I think she would know."
Mommy, cursing under breath for promising to tell the truth whenever asked: "Well, what do you think?"
Maggie: "I just don't know."
Mommy: "I think that as long as you believe in Santa, then he's real. When people stop believing, he stops bringing their gifts, and that's probably why Maddie's parents are the ones giving her gifts."
Mom, thinks "Nice save" as she imagines patting herself on back.
Two days before this conversation, we attended our church's annual Breakfast with Santa, where Maggie asked Santa for a microscope. Two days after this conversation, Santa visited Maggie's school. The morning of the school visit, Maggie declared she'd figured out a way to see if Santa was real: "I'll tell Santa today that I want a puppy. If he remembers that I asked him for a microscope on Saturday, then I'll know he's real!"
Cursing under my breath for wanting an intelligent child (ok, j/k on that ...), I wondered if there could - maybe, possibly, just maybe - be a way to get a message to School Santa. Could I give him a description of Maggie and ask him to play along? Could I invent reasons to stay at the school until Maggie's class came through? I eventally decided my scheme was too hard, too complicated, and not really fair to School Santa, so I let the matter drop. That is, until a friend and I, who were working on teacher gifts in the lunchroom, glimpsed School Santa walk in.
And let me just tell you that this guy looked. like. Santa. In blue jeans. The real guy ... but in jeans. Weird.
I guess seeing how real he looked sort of rekindled my desire to pull off the stunt. My friend suggested I write the Santa message on my photo order, so I raced across the gym to catch the staff member who had the order forms. Unfortunately, she said that neither Santa nor the photographer would see the forms. I thought I was back to square one, when she offered to keep a look out. Rose's office overlooks the gym area where the photos were being taken, and she said she'd try her best to watch for Maggie's class to come through.
And it all played out perfectly! She told me later that she saw Maggie's class come in, so she talked to Santa first. Maggie sat on his lap and had her picture taken, then before she could say anything to him, he leaned in to her and said, "Now ... if I'm not mistaken, you're the little girl who told me on Saturday that she'd like a microscope for Christmas. Is that still right?" Rose told me she wished she had a video camera to catch it -- she said Maggie's eyes got huge, and her head whipped around so fast Rose thought she'd get whiplash!
Here's Maggie with Santa, just before her shocking discovery:
(It's a cell phone picture of a picture, so it's really bad, but I had to include it. And try telling me that guy doesn't look like the real Santa.)
Oh, and the puppy? Santa vetoed that.
He really is real!
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