Our daughter is five years old and has a full awareness of who Santa Claus is and what it is he does; she knows about his lists and how he checks them twice ‘cause he wants to find out who is naughty or nice. What she doesn’t know is that Santa Claus can be a parent’s greatest weapon for roughly three months out of the year.
I have not been able to hold the Santa card over my daughter’s head before, simply because she only moved in with us last December, a few months prior to her adoption, and I didn’t feel it would be good to threaten her with a naughty list placement with only about twenty days left until Christmas. This year though all bets are off, that jolly man in the red suit is mom’s best friend. I even use “appointments” with him to get out of the house without having to take any of our three children. It would be bliss if I wasn’t using the time to fight the retail crowds to get gifts for Santa to deliver on Christmas Eve after the children go to sleep. I do wish there were little elves for all the wrapping, because at three and five it is more quantity with my kids than quality. Well, that is not totally true, my daughter was pretty specific about some of the things that she wanted; my three year old son though will most likely have more fun with the boxes and helping to clean up than worrying about his presents and if they are exactly what he wanted.
My threats and calls to Santa for a naughty list placement have been thwarted on two different occasions. The first was on Thanksgiving when my daughter told our hostess, who is my mother’s best friend that she was on the naughty list. She immediately told my daughter that she would make a call herself and get my daughter’s name moved right back onto the good list. It was only a couple weeks later that I had to make that dreaded call to Santa again and asked that her name be moved.
She was beyond hysterical, which for an overly dramatic five year old is an amazing sight to see. There were huge crocodile tears streaming down her face and she had the hiccoughs that you get when you have cried for too long. I stayed true to my word and called the jolly one myself and left a message that my daughter was not behaving and needed to have her name back on the naughty list. I explained to her that this time of year you have to leave a message because Santa is busy getting everything ready for the big night. All was peaceful and quiet after that, she became an angelic child over night with only slight slip-ups. My life was blissful, I had a child on the naughty list, or so she thought and I didn’t have to make any threats.
Then the other night I was on the phone with my mother, and my son asked to talk to her. I let him and he was busy telling her about his trip on the potty earlier that day, potty training a three year old is another story for another day, when my daughter started her award winning crying that she had to talk to her Grammy. I put her on the phone and her main concern was telling my mother that I had gotten her placed on the naughty list. My mother, of course as any grandmother would, told my daughter that she would be removed then asked to speak to me.
She informed me that my daughter was under the impression that she was getting nothing for Christmas, which is something that I would never do. I have way too much fun picking out things for her; Barbie has gotten much more fun since I was a little girl. So, we are once again skimming by on the good list with only about two weeks until Christmas.
Can my daughter manage to keep herself out of trouble until then, I sincerely doubt it. But with my naughty list requests being thwarted by other adults I have only empty threats to sustain me. I gave up on those, plus my daughter is too busy being teased by her brother for any real acts of mischief. He seems to be keeping her in line.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS
