This Christmas, I wanted a picture of my kids with Santa, but the long lines were demotivating until I found my favorite store hosting one such event. That morning I promptly got the kids ready and shoved them in the car to be ahead of the crowd. While we waited in the queue to get clicked I indulged the kids into Santa conversation. My kid pointed to the seated Santy and whispered that he was not a real Santa. “The real Santa understands and speaks all the languages of the world, while this one spoke only in English.” His hypothesis was convincing, nevertheless the kids were happy to get a picture with the human Santa.
While waiting for the photo print, we reminisced last Christmas when my son managed to get a glimpse of Santa’s sleigh in the sky — “the blinking red light in the sky was Rudolph’s nose!” he gleamed.  But this Christmas, he had a grand plan, which was to take a picture with the real Santa (who lives in North Pole), and then go for a sleigh ride with him.
I told my son that Santa wanted little kids to sleep on time so that he could work his magic while they are in bed, but this kid was too adamant, so I decided to play along….
The preparation for the big meeting began after dinner time….First of all we sprinkled the reindeer food  (oats with twinkling colored sugar) around the house so that Santa could see our house from the sky. Then we baked some soft chewy chocolate chip cookies and kept it on the dinner table with a tall glass of milk. <Its no wonder that the jolly old fellow has a big belly from eating all those sugary cookies! > We decided to put a side of carrots also…just incase Santa was watching his calorie intake this Christmas.
The highlight of the big game plan was to stay up late in the night to witness Santa. One good way to avoid sleep is the movies, so we watched an old classic ‘Jason and the Argonauts’, and were in awe to see the special effects, specially the army of skeletons. My son strived to stay awake and was restless to know about the time of Santa’s arrival. So we tracked Santa’s location using one of the smartphone applications. The Santa tracker application showed that Santa’s sleigh was in Canada, and that there were still two and a half hours for his arrival to our house.
I have to admit that I was nervous about my son’s unyielding desire to meet the Santa, as it meant that I would have to reveal the truth about St. Nick. Deep in my heart I was not ready to spill the beans yet, as I enjoyed planning the whole clandestine affair and the element of surprise it entailed. I secretly hoped that my son would doze off soon
In order to kill time we discussed how Santa got everything done in a single night, and his plausible use of magical powers or teleporting technique. As my kid’s eyes got heavy our talks began to plummet. He agreed to take a short nap after setting a two hour alarm, so that he is up on time to catch Santa.
To my relief my son fell asleep and I once again could enjoy being a secret Santa to my kids. My hubby cancelled the alarm and we all slept until my son woke us at five in the morning. He dashed towards the hung stockings and the wrapped up presents under the Christmas tree. He called out for his little brother who was still in bed, and then both the kids ripped open the wrappings.
I was busy video taping the excitement, and was filled with gratitude to experience yet another moment of childhood innocence.
Photo credit: Lars Tinner via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND