childhood

Santa Claus: or, There and Back Again

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 8 Comments

Before I became a parent, I was sure of one thing:  No elaborate lies about this guy named Santa Claus.  I generally “believed” myself as a child, but I don’t remember my parents telling me he was real.  I had presents under the tree “from Santa” and enjoyed all of the traditions and stories about the North Pole, reindeer, etc.; but Christmas was about spiritual matters and the other stuff was just fairy tale fun.

This Christmas my daughter is 2 1/2 years old.  She is prime time for the jolly old elf, and I saw on her face something I never expected.  A few times when I started to explain that it is all just tradition and a fun story, she gave me a look that I can only describe as please don’t take this away from me.  In that instant I realized this period of magical thinking is truly brief, and while I had no interest in some elaborate ruse for myself, she was interested.

Conundrum.

I have known too many people who complain bitterly about being tricked about Santa Claus.  They use words like tricked, lied to, fooled,  and deceived.  They say things like, “I realized I could never trust my parents again.”  That, my friends, is serious business.  I don’t think there is any sure way to know if one’s child will end up feeling this way if you lead them along the merry path.  All I knew, or thought I knew, was that I was not about to risk it.  I mean for heaven’s sake, I need my credibility there for things like sex, God, and paper or plastic.  I can’t be burning it up over some fool elf.

But like I said………there was that face.  I didn’t have the heart to tell her it wasn’t real, and I found myself enjoying the game in spite of myself.  The look on her face when she saw Santa soliciting donations for a children’s charity in town was incredible.  She was just speechless in his presence, but couldn’t stop talking about him at home.  She talked about the elves, the workshops, the North Pole, the flying reindeer, all of it.  Where it started to change was when she processed the stories about “keeping a list.”

It’s nearly impossible to talk about Santa Claus without getting into the lists of who’s been naughty and who’s been nice.  The worst are picture books that show him keeping lists of names of “the good little girls and boys.”  My child’s face would cloud over and she looked very unhappy.  Truly, she should have nothing to worry about.  She’s a well-behaved kid.  But I knew she definitely did not like this part of the story.

One evening as she was falling asleep I heard her say, “Santa will be upset with me.  Santa is going to be upset.”  I assured her Santa was just fine with her, that he didn’t get upset with anyone, that it was all good.  But the next episode sealed the deal for me.  As we were talking about Santa in general and the fact that Christmas is coming, she cut her eyes away from me and said flatly, “I don’t love him.”

My girl is one of the most loving children I’ve ever known.  This was a red alert that the big man had to be kicked to the curb.  After talking it over with her father, I told my daughter, “You know, Santa Claus is just a character in a story that people like to tell this time of year.  It’s for fun.  It’s all about magic, and giving, and imagination.”  She looked at me with wide eyes.  I went for it.  “He’s not real.  He’s made up.  Momma and Daddy are real.  We love you.  You never have to worry about Santa, he’s just pretend and for fun.  If it’s not fun, we can just not talk about him.”

That child’s face lit up like a you know what.  She smiled a beautiful smile and hugged me with all her might.

What can I say?  If it works, it works.  If it doesn’t, it’s truly no loss.  Yesterday we lost a fat guy in a suit we were going to lose eventually anyway, and we kept a tighter grip on unconditional love.  That is for real.

Image credit: Norman Rockwell

“The Play Center”: Changing Children’s Lives

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 7 Comments

When I was a child, I grew up with Sunrise Children’s Museum. 

I remember the planetarium, when the room became as dark as night in the country and stars in constellations emerged as if by magic on the curved sky of a ceiling.  I remember leaning back in the tilted seat, my face unavoidably turned toward the heavens, and listening to Mr. Gardener speak the names of Orion and Pegasus and the Big Dipper, and then those same beings would appear as connected stars before my eyes.  He spoke of seasons, and change, and science, and the stars spun as he described the tilting of the earth on its axis.  Our moon, our solar system, other galaxies became realities for me as I sat there in the pitch black room, becoming part of the universe and listening to what seemed, if not the voice of God, the voice of someone who had an inside channel.

There were pencils in the gift shop with tiny geologic specimens in the tip.  There were animals in environments designed just for them in the basement. A woman named Loa Martin would hold a boa constrictor and let us kids touch it to understand that in fact, reptiles were not slimy, they were dry — dry and cold, because their blood was cold.  You can hear all day that mammals are warm-blooded and reptiles are cold, but until you put your hand on a boa you really haven’t “learned” it.

There was a sloth, “an arboreal and nocturnal animal,” who I only ever saw active on a tree and in a room lighted with an orangish-red light.  Why, I asked, is this room so dark?  Because this is nocturnal animal, it is only active at night.  Click……my mind got it.

I am grown up now, and so is the Sunrise Museum.  It is now the children’s discovery museum at The Clay Center.  Family members and very good friends have been employees there and volunteer leaders on its behalf.  I renew a family membership every year, and it has nothing to do with nostalgia (which I clearly have) and everything to do with opening the world of the arts and sciences to my child.

My little girl asks every week to go to “the play center.”  As soon as we are in the door it is, as they say, ON.  She starts with wind currents and balance, then moves to water and more wind and erosion.  She moves to magnetic fields and physics and how machines work; sound waves, animation, lasers, and exoskeletons.  She runs experiments on how feathers keep birds dry, sees the life stages of a butterfly, and marvels at the teeth still set in the jaw bone of long-demised deer.

I also support “the play center” for children other than my own.  A close friend told me a story about some children who came to the art portion of the museum.  This particular group of kids was from a county more rural than most in West Virginia, and there were children in the group who had never been up a flight of stairs.  One child shrank against the wall in confusion when she saw the winding staircase with its great wood banister in the original Sunrise Museum. 

Moments like this open our eyes to how much  of a life-changing experience a simple field trip can be.  Sometimes it is not even about the detailed experiments or art, it is the opportunity to see new parts of the world, parts many of us take for granted.  In this same group a guide asked the children about what they saw in a painting by Anne Shreve.  The painting was a still life that included a large frilly pink seashell.  The children were silent.  “What about this?” asked the guide.  “What do you see here?”  More silence.  Then an intrepid young soul piped up gently, “A birthday cake?”

Never underestimate what one visit, one opportunity means to a child.  Every day, lives are changing and opening to the world of arts and sciences…….and beyond.