The Evolution Of Santa: A Kid’s Perspective

**Spoiler Alert!! Article contains privileged information about certain men in red suits, and we are not referring to less-than-forunate crew members of the USS Enterprise. The other men in red suits.**

No, Virginia, there is not a Santa Claus.

The clatter that arose on the rooftop? That may have been some icicles, or some birds, but it was not Santa. Oh yeah, and the dude in the mall that claims to be Santa Claus? He’s not real, either. Same goes for the one outside the mall with a bell. And the other “Santas” as well.

Please, don’t allow these truths to take away any of the wonderful metaphorical meanings for “Santa Claus” that you have created as a grown-up. Santa is many things to many different people: a modern manifestation of Saint Nicholas; a purveyor of children’s morals; or a fat dude in a red suit who brings presents to kids once a year. Whatever. Maybe you see him as the one huge lie that you are allowed to tell your kids. Santa, after all, can be your strongman in making sure there’s less naughty, and more nice, behavior.

There are a million adult views out there of who Santa is, but enough of these reindeer games. How exactly does a child perceive this great red jolly old elf? Fact of the matter is, a child’s view of Santa is just as complex as some of our perspectives. A child’s viewpoint, however, depends upon the age of the child.

Santa: The Myth. The Man. The Legend. The Myth.

Families like ours have decided to push the Great Red Hype unto our kids like sugar-plums. This decision came easy, mostly because of parent peer pressure. We didn’t feel like being those parents. Whatever consequences that we would have to face for basically telling our children a lie for most of their formative years, we would face whenever the time came.

Given that poorly thought out decision, here’s a rundown of what must go on through the mind of a child, as he or she grows to love Santa Claus. An Evolution of Santa, if you will. A bumpy road? Yes. A slippery slope? Sure! But no slope could possibly be too formidable for a flying sleigh, complete with eight tiny reindeer and the Red Honcho himself.

Infancy: A Red Star is Born. Santa is easy to push on an infant, because it’s fairly safe to say that most newborns do not know, or care, who he is. This, of course, is the perfect time to indoctrinate the child into the madness, especially since infants can be partial to the color red. Coincidence? We at Dad Vs. Spawn are not here to start conspiracies. Nonetheless, Santa to an infant really isn’t far from the truth: a big fat red blob.

Christmas for a one-year-old: A fat man with a bag of toys? Why not!?! At this age, the toys can fall from the sky, come up ground or merely zap into existence. It doesn’t matter. To a fresh-faced toddler, toys are awesome and so are people. And who is this “Santa?” A cute fat magical man, twinkly eyes, merry dimples and fluffy beard? Santa is nothing but a happy, glowing ball of cloudy happy dust. Toys! Mom and dad are excited about it! Sure, I’ll sit on his lap! Whatevs! “Santa” equals “fun!”

Next stop on the Polar Express: I love this guy. But that doesn’t mean I have to like him. Call it bipolar, schizophrenic, or just plain nuts. Kids in the two to four age-range suddenly decide that “Santa is great and jolly and all, but ain’t no way you’re gonna put me on his lap, or I will scream and want out. Immediately. With no chance of a decent picture.” No need to teach about stranger danger here, because the mistrust in the bearded one is strong. Once again, Santa looks like a big fat red blob, only now with teeth. Sharp teeth. None of this is relevant, of course, if the Santa-type-thing is not anywhere nearby. You know, because free toys are still cool and all.

The Golden Age of Santa Claus.* Once a child’s fear of the Man in the Red Hat has subsided, he or she will officially have some of the best, most memorable Christmasses ever. Ones where Santa can bring any toy in any catalog. He’ll deliver them with all of the reindeer on Christmas Eve will ALL the trimmings. At this age, since the kid can communicate with Mall Santa, sitting on his lap is no longer something to be feared. It is a gateway to toy paradise. This is the Santa you think of when you remember believing in Santa.

Christmas for Older, Wiser Kids: Santa Overload. All good things must eventually, and sadly, come to an end. Kids that are well beyond their toddler years are smarter than ever. Couple that with your parental holiday imperfections, and inevitably the kids take note and start to realize that all is not right with the Santa. How many similarly-dressed “helpers” can one man have? Why did Mommy leave an Amazon.com search for “bikes with training wheels” open on the computer when that is what I asked Santa for? Didn’t that Santa from the family Christmas party look a lot like Uncle Dale? Most of all, WHY ARE THERE SO MANY SANTAS?!?

Santa Is Dead Dad. There has been talk at school about parental holiday fraud. Your child has been taking mental notes for years about the red-suit. The gifts that you hid away were seen well before December 25^th. The reason why there are Santas everywhere around Christmastime just clicked. Yep, the kid knows. Santa Claus is officially just a dude in a costume… sometimes even Dad himself. Mom. Dad. You have some explaining to do.

So, was all the deception worth it in the end? Hold tight, because there is another phase after a child realizes that “Santa” didn’t exactly resonate with “the truth.” It’s called growing up. This is perhaps the most enlightening phase of all: the one is where a child realizes that Mom and Dad did all of this altruistically, to teach their child a greater lesson about life, giving, love and caring. The phase where the child realizes that the ability to feel like a child will always be a precious thing.

But most importantly, he or she will come to accept the truth about the man in the red suit, AKA Santa Claus: he’s my Mom and Dad.

* Also referred to as The Golden Age of Parenting In December. A child this age is putty in your hands. Any undisciplined child’s course of actions can be reversed with these simple words: You know, Santa doesn’t bring toys to kids who don’t listen to Mommy or Daddy. Solid gold.

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Let’s Go Kill a Kite!

Good grief.

So there’s one more thing I can cross off of my list today: “flying” a kite with my kids. The quotes are there for a very specific reason.

Yes, it flew for a very small amount of time, and then I roofed it. Meaning I got it on a roof. When I got it off the roof, it naturally ended up in a tree. Yes, I was a Peanuts fan as a child. Yes… poetic justice. Yes, I suck at flying kites.

But do you know what the best part is? I was a total hero to my kids. They saw the fact that I had it in the air for a few seconds as a huge success, with many oohs and aahs. Good enough for me!

The moral of the story? None, really, just get out there with your kids and show them the world, including things you are terrible at. Be a hero.

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Parenting From Scratch

Note to readers: We here at Dad Vs. Spawn are not nutritionists, or doctors… or Dr. Nutritionists. We are Dads, who care about our kids, and we also happen to care very much about the food that they eat. We also happen to think that we do some pretty great things when it comes to feeding our children. So while you shouldn’t come here for all of your kid’s nutritional questions, we still feel like we have some pretty great advice for you about the things that you are feeding your kids. Seriously, put those frozen chicken fingers back in the frozen case and listen up.

I was hoping to continue the subject about what we are feeding our children with a little history about one of the most prevalent first foods — infant formula. As an official blogger, naturally I headed straight to Wikipedia’s entry on infant formula. I was expecting to find a few basic facts, such as when it was first used, what it was originally made from, and so on. Check it out. Look around a bit, and if you care about your kids and fed them infant formula somewhere in the past, maybe you’ll see a few things that, for lack of a better word, frighten you.

Yes, I understand that there are circumstances where breastfeeding just isn’t possible, and every parent has the right to choose what they feed their children. However, as is often the case with formula, kids are fed over-processed, less-than-healthy food choices simply for the fact that they are slightly more convenient in our busy, busy lives. I don’t care how many scientists they have developing the next super-powdered brain-enhancing formula. In most cases, it will never be a better option than breast milk.

After that whole debate, parents get to step into the big sloppy green world of baby’s first solid foods. Here things go from chemical “just-add-water” powder to jars of natural foods – fruits, vegetables, and bland pureed meats. It’s a perfectly tricky segue for big food companies. A caring parent will read the labels of jars of solid foods usually to find generally natural ingredients.*

The tricky part is that before you know it, you are excited that your child is past orange and green goo and ready for the big time. So where do you take them for the very first time: McDonald’s of course. Eating jarred baby food worked out so well, that your bigger baby is ready to consume food that is really just processed and preserved, frozen and unfrozen, bland and awful. At home, the options are really just frozen versions of the same crap.

What happened? You wanted to feed him natural veggies and fruits, but now he graduated to food that has more chemicals than Batman.

Take a step back, new parents. Take a couple steps back for that matter. Choose the breast milk if you can. It’s harder work of course, but you are holding the reward.

After that, incorporate homemade pureed vegetables and fruits into your child’s early diet. Nothing is more rewarding than giving your kid food that came from your own hands. Not only that, but this makes a much better segue into eating “grown-up” food, that can be made from scratch by you, the consummate chef extraordinaire. Teach your kid to like natural flavors of food instead of drooling like one of Pavlov’s dogs whenever he sees a giant yellow “M.”

Most of all, learning to feed your kid natural and healthy alternatives to over-processed foods can give you the tools to belong to a new movement of parents. Parents who can teach their kids about tons of vegan and vegetarian options in addition to a “normal” diet. Parents who show their kids how to cook without using a microwave. Parents who can feed their kids bread with five homemade ingredients, rather than thirty. Parents who are determined to raise their children to be healthy.

* There are still plenty of awesome options out there for parents who decide to make their own baby food… from scratch.

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Holiday Travel Note: Weekend Post

A quick note from John:

With long holiday car rides and lots of crying. You’ll probably try a bunch of tactics to get your children to stop making shrill noise in the back seat. This one is one of the ones that didn’t work so well.

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Parental Attention Deficit Disorder

Being a parent will inevitably split your brain in two. Forget what you know about the “left” and “right” sides of the brain. I’m referring to two different halves:

1.) The half of your brain that is dedicated to paying attention to your children

-and-

2.) The half of your brain that needs to do everything else.

Take for instance a simple conversation with another adult. Normal people without children, let’s call them sane people, can talk about whatever they want until the conversation is over. Then they can move on to another conversation, take action, or do whatever the heck it is that these so-called sane people do.

Now throw the people with children, let’s call them parents*, into the conversation. As a result, you instantly get conversations that are disjointed, incomplete, and messy to varying degrees. The kicker is that it doesn’t matter where the kids are.

Let’s dig a little further into this rabbit hole, shall we?

You see, if the children are in proximity of the conversation, then there is no way at all to have a decent, whole discussion about anything at all with another human being. Sometimes it’s because the children are engaging in childlike behavior: erratic; dangerous; fun. They must be watched. Other times they keep coming up to you either interrupting the conversation intentionally, or trying to stop Mommy or Daddy from having a grown-up interaction.

If, on the other hand, they are being perfect little angels, then clearly they are up to no good and plotting some kind of anti-parent action. They absolutely must be watched.

Further into this lose-lose situation are conversations with other human beings where children are off somewhere, out of sight.

Out of mind, right?

Wrong, sir/ma’am! This is where another parental instinct kicks in, where your mind can envision all of the insanely dangerous things that you witnessed your children do while you were right there. Those things that you think back on and wonder how they avoided serious injury. If you couldn’t help avoid trouble then, how can you possibly help them now when you can’t even see them?

After all of this mental wrangling, you suddenly look up and see another adult carrying on to you about something, you just can’t recall what it was. You probably look distant, even rude to them right now. There was a conversation you were having… it was about, um, school lunches! Yes! It was about nutrition in public schools!

Then you think about when the last time was that your kid had a snack…

* Insane people

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