Let me put your mind at ease. You have not been lying to your child if you have allowed Santa Claus to be part of your Christmas celebration.  Santa is a cultural myth; he is part of our folklore.

 Almost all young children’s celebration of Christmas has included Santa Claus at some point. He is part of the magic of the holiday. And it is thrilling for children to believe that there is a guy with a white beard and a red suit, who flies through the sky in sleigh pulled by reindeer that carries enough toys for all the children in the whole world. He lands on your roof, finds the exact present you want, comes into your house via the chimney, leaves the gift, eats the cookies, gulps the milk, and climbs back up that same chimney, now off to the next house.  You’d have to believe in magic to buy that one!  How lucky are young children that they do. Oh to believe in magic and Santa again.

 Your child will ask if Santa is real. It might come when he is 5 or even much older, at 8 or 9. The impossibility of the story might just dawn on him, or his buddy who has an older brother might burst his balloon.

 But when your child comes to you, what do you say?  “Well, what do you believe?” Because he wants the magic, he’ll believe. But then that questioning, growing-up voice will persist. “But what do YOU believe?”

 I am not someone who wants to rain on a child’s parade, and I don’t think you are lying.  I think you are doing what your mother did for you, and what her mother did for her. You are passing down the folklore, keeping up the tradition, and allowing your child to fully enjoy the magic while he can.

 “When I was a little girl, I believed in Santa Claus. Now that I am grown up, I have different ideas about him. Each person gets to decide for himself if he thinks Santa is real. What I can tell you for sure is that the story of Santa is part of celebrating Christmas, just like Frosty and Christmas trees and lights and wreaths.”

 And when your 10 year old is on the verge of spilling the beans, bring him into your inner circle. “When Grandma was a little girl, her mommy told her about Santa, and when I was little, Grandma told me about Santa, and when you were little, I told you about Santa. And now you get to help me keep the story going and let your little brother believe in Santa. One day, he will figure it out, just like you did. But he’s just a little boy, so help me to pass on the story to him.”

 I have been hearing about this book since its release, but shame on me for not reading it until now. It is my loss. Don’t let it be yours.

 Of Thee I Sing, a beautifully, joyfully illustrated book, will drop you to your knees. Each pair of pages proclaims a trait that Obama admires in his girls. “Have I told you that you are creative?” he declares on one page. And on the facing page there is a simple, elegant reference to a great American.  Paired with creativity, for example, is Georgia O’Keeffe. The writing is rich and stark, poetic and simply descriptive and delicious, and rolls off your tongue.  This book is educational and emotional, said this author who was in tears at its conclusion.

 Each of the Americans he portrays is someone about whom your children must know. Each has made a profound contribution to society as we know it today. And each embodies a quality we all want to cultivate in our children.

 As you must know, having read many of my blogs, I am a promoter of families and family life. It is the family that has the deepest and most lasting impact on children. And so I see the family meal (breakfast, lunch, or dinner) as being the ideal vehicle for presenting Of Thee I Sing. Each trait paired with  an American is perfect for starting a family discussion, regardless of the age of the people seated at the table. Everyone will be able to relate on his own level. 

I once learned that Joe Kennedy, or maybe it was Rose, used to bring an article from the Times to their dinner table each night for discussion among the Kennedy children. While that might be a “high fallutin’ ” approach, the idea is good one. It is through the banter of meal times that children absorb their parents’ beliefs and values. It is during family meal conversations, when each member has the floor, that children feel their opinions and ideas matter. 

 In the coming year, in addition to making family meals happen, why not make the most of them?  Let Of Thee I Sing be the icing on your cake.

Tuck the ideas away, and enjoy the rest of this holiday for now. Then when all is said and done, ponder the ideas I have offered about rebranding the holidays to be in keeping with your family values, moving from GimME to give you.

Have a lovely holiday season.

 In the end it is the experiences that define the holidays. Do you remember what you received when you were 7 or 8 or 9?  Not likely. But you do remember what you always used to do with your family, year after year.  Experiences in the form of holiday traditions and rituals are family glue. Not only do they hold families together, but they stick long after the gifts have been broken or outgrown.  And the experiences of the holiday are what help to diffuse the dreaded gimmes.

 Experiences come in all forms:

•  Every year on Christmas Eve whole family bundles up in their p.j’s, jumps into the car, and combs the city for the best holiday lights.
•  One night of Chanukah each year is game night. The whole family plays Dreidel and other games,  the best part being everyone’s participation.
•  Every year before Christmas or on Chanukah every family member participates in making the family gift—chocolate covered pretzel sticks—to give to everyone on each family member’s gift list. Who knew Dad was such a good cook?
•  Every year at holiday time there is a movie night on which the family snuggles in the den, drinking cocoa with marshmallows, and watches The Miracle on 34^th Street.
•  Every year on Christmas Eve the whole family squeezes into Mom and Dad’s bed and listens to stories of when they were little at holiday time (or better, of the naughty things you used to do!)
•  Every Christmas or Chanukah one gift is hidden, and there is a treasure hunt to find it.  The hunt all over the house trumps the gift.
•  Every year each family beautifully wraps something of his that is ridiculous (a Barbie arm; a wheel from a broken truck) to give to each of the others.
•  Every year the family chooses Secret Elves for whom they will do surprise kindnesses, leaving only a note saying “from your Secret Elf.”

 You get the idea. These traditions of the holiday are very things that take the emphasis off the gifts and onto the real fun, the traditions, the family… the experiences that truly make the holidays special.

 And experiences make the best gifts of all, the ones that are remembered long after the Star Wars Battleship has come apart.  Your child will never forget when her gift from Grandma was going to theater to see The Lion King or when Uncle Jon took him fishing on the pier. Maybe the best gift was  a camp-out in the back yard with Daddy or taking knitting lessons with Mom.  While the gifts you bought may have sparkled under the tree, they are not necessarily the ones that have the greatest impact, the deepest meaning, but they are the longest remembered.

Experiences speak to children in ways that gifts just can’t.  They are interactive. They nurture a child because it is through hands on, active experience that children evolve and grow the most. Experiences are time-released: they are absorbed over time and recalled over and over. They live on in our minds and in our hearts, never to be forgotten.  Experiences are about people, and they cement relationships. Nothing lasts as long as a relationship.  Experiences stick. They are the gifts that keep on giving.

 Experiences of all kinds, whether as gifts or as traditions, are the antidotes to the holiday gimmes.   If you haven’t started out this way, it’s not too late. Traditions can begin at any time. Your children will absorb your enthusiasm and excitement. And next year  they’ll be the ones looking forward to the experience of the holidays.

Our children are taught the Thanksgiving story—the horror of the true story somewhat  p.c.-ified (made politically correct) to reflect the supposed kindness of the Native Americans to the Pilgrims. They are asked to consider all of that for which they are grateful. They participate in canned food and gently used clothing drives. And generally, a pretty good job is done of framing Thanksgiving to be about giving thanks and thinking of others.

The very next day, up go the Christmas lights, a chorus of Deck the Halls fills the airways, store shelves are lined with objects of children’s desires.  And in the case of Chanukah, this year in particular, within hours the holiday begins.  So much for our gratitude for our bounty and our focus on giving. The season of gimme gimme gimme has begun.

 It doesn’t have to be so. As parents and the captains of your family ship, it is within your power to reframe your holiday observance to continue the giving atttitude you cultivated at Thanksgiving.  And now is the time to begin.

• As your child is building his “ gimME list,” help him to create a parallel “give YOU list” of people to whom he wants to give something. That list should include people to whom he is grateful for any number of reasons—the crossing guard, the produce man, his teacher, his neighbor he greets each day.  
• Set aside special times when the whole family participates in making a  “family gift.” Maybe it’s cranberry bread or popcorn balls or pretzel sticks dipped in chocolate.  And your child gets to give that gift to all the people on his own list.
• Allow your child to help you in the giving activities. Even the youngest children can affix stamps to holiday cards or sponge them closed.  Children love to help wrap gifts (the lure of a roll of tape!). Set aside your perfectionistic habits, and let him put on the paper, cockeyed though it may look!
• Consider making a gift to your child be a gift that he gives to help someone else. Allow him to learn what a gift it is to be able to help, really help someone else.  Do you know that he can buy a cow which will support a whole family? Below are listed websites through which you can give real things, necessities,  that help people to live.  You will be amazed at how exciting it is for a child to know the difference his gift is making in someone else’s life.  Then watch the holiday  take on a whole new meaning.   

http://www.shopnwf.org/Adoption-Center/index.cat

http://www.savethechildren.org/gifts

http://www.globalgiving.org/

http://www.alternativegifts.org/

http://changingthepresent.org/gifts

http://www.youthgive.org/global

http://shop.noahwild.com/

http://www.panda.org/how_you_can_help/support_wwf/gifts/

http://www.milkandbookies.org

•  Share with your child the joy you feel in giving to others. Your enthusiasm will be contagious.

 Let me put your mind at ease. You have not been lying to your child if you have allowed Santa Claus to be part of your Christmas celebration.  Santa is a cultural myth; he is part of our folklore.

Almost all young children’s celebration of Christmas has included Santa Claus at some point. He is part of the magic of the holiday. And it is thrilling for children to believe that there is a guy with a white beard and a red suit, who flies through the sky in sleigh pulled by reindeer that carries enough toys for all the children in the whole world. He lands on your roof, finds the exact present you want, comes into your house via the chimney, leaves the gift, eats the cookies, gulps the milk, and climbs back up that same chimney and flies away, off to the next house.  You’d have to believe in magic to buy that one!  How lucky are young children that they do. Oh to believe in magic and Santa again.

 Your child will ask if Santa is real. It might come when he is 5 or even much older, at 8 or 9. The impossibility of the story might just dawn on him, or his buddy, who has an older brother, might burst his balloon.

 But when your child comes to you, what do you say?  “Well, what do you believe?”  Because he wants the magic, he’ll say he believes. But then that questioning, growing up voice will persist. “But what do YOU believe, Mommy?”

 I am not someone who wants to rain on a child’s parade, and I don’t think you are lying.  I think you are doing what your mother did for you and what her mother did for her. You are passing down the folklore, keeping up the tradition, and allowing your child to fully enjoy the magic while he can, before reality takes over.

 “When I was a little girl, I believed in Santa Claus. Now that I am grown up, I have different ideas about him. Each person gets to decide for himself if he thinks Santa is real. What I can tell you for sure is that the story of Santa is part of celebrating Christmas, just like Frosty and Christmas trees and lights and wreaths.”

 And when your 10 year old is on the verge of spilling the beans, bring him into your inner circle. “When Grandma was a little girl, her mommy told her about Santa, and when I was little, Grandma told me about Santa, and when you were little, I told you about Santa. And now you get to help me keep the story going and let your little brother believe in Santa. One day, he will figure it out, just like you did. But now he’s just a little boy, so you can help me to pass on the story to him.”

• Keep your own feelings in check. If you feel sad or even guilty, as if you are depriving your child of something, (Santa for the Jewish child; 8 days of celebrating for the Christian child) your child will absorb those feelings. You need not feel guilty that Santa isn’t a part of your celebration.
• Take this opportunity to walk your child through her/his feelings of disappointment.  Life is filled with times when we can’t have it all.  Learning to accept that and allowing your child the opportunity to reflect those accompanying sad feelings  is a gift to him. You will be helping him to develop coping skills. And it will teach a tolerance for disappointment which is a life long lesson.
• Take pains not to position yourselves as Jews who are missing out on something. It needs to be about what you have and not what you don’t have! Be creative in your celebration of Chanukah. Create all kinds of family experiences, rituals and traditions. You have 8 days to celebrate, and on each of these you can do something different and special (a dreidle night; a baking night; a game night; a making-gifts-for-others night; a party with friends night; and a few gift nights, too.)   But don’t make up for the lack of Christmas by giving a gift every night. It only creates an insatiable thirst for getting more stuff and makes the holiday about gimme gimme gimme.
• Teach about Chanukah and tell the exciting story of the oil that lasted 8 days, the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, the Macabees winning the battle.  There are super heroes and there is  magic in the story!  Do science experiments with fire and oil and candles.
• Make the holiday season more about give you than gimme. Give your child the gift of experiencing the good feelings that go along giving rather than getting. Create experiences that are all about sharing with others. Choose “Secret Elves” who do surprise acts of kindness or help for someone in the family, leaving a note that says “From your secret Elf!”  Ask your child to make a list of people whom he would like to honor with a gift (he has made). Do activities in which whole family participates, making cranberry bread or popcorn balls. Then give what you have made to those who don’t expect it (the crossing guard, the school janitor, etc..).  Create surprise coupons to give that are favors you will do for others. The list is endless!  
• Help your child to learn that you can love and appreciate something without bringing it into your home. You can get yourselves invited to a friends’ house to trim their tree. You can go to a Christmas tree lot and play hide and seek as you smell the delicious trees. You can pile in the car in your pj’s and search for Christmas lights all over the city.

The joy and richness of whichever winter holiday you celebrate comes through the traditions and rituals you create and repeat each year.  The best memories of the holidays come from family experiences you remember and cherish, not from gifts you receive nor from bringing Santa into your home. It’s never to late to begin again.