Author: Rebecca Cuneo Keenan

The majority of us are just trying to get through the holiday season intact without tainting the joy too much for our kids. Am I right? I mean, I already know that when we go to choose our “organic” tree (is there another kind?) from the supermarket parking lot we’ll need to find a compromise between my husband’s desire to buy what the tree guy calls “the Ferrari of Christmas trees” and my desire to have some money left over for groceries. Then there will be the swearing and complaining as the needles dig into your skin and the whole, “Why can’t you hold the damn tree straight?!” episode. The kids will load up the bottom of the tree with decorations, fighting over them and destroying some in the process, almost for sure. They’ll be all hopped up on the gingerbread house I won’t let them touch until we get the tree up, and then they’ll very likely knock the whole tree down at least once. I’ll be sweeping up needles until May and pulling ornaments out of the toy boxes until … oh, look, here’s one from last year.

And that’s just the tree, my friends.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas as much as the next guy, but the holidays are stressful. So, yes, I’ll take whatever help I can get to keep the magic alive for my kids. It just so happens that the help comes in the form of an overweight, white dude in a red suit who lives on the North Pole. Whatever. I’ll take it.

Not everyone agrees, though. Daniela Syrovy of sympatico.ca’s Coffee Talk argues that Santa is nothing but a myth that celebrates materialism and magnifies socio-economic disparity. (Except she doesn’t sound like she’s writing a graduate paper in her column.) Guest blogger Grinchmommy on momlogic.com adds that Santa sets up kids for disappointment and makes a liar out of parents and is smug about how her kindergarten-aged daughter brought her classmates to tears telling them the truth about Santa. This dad made these same arguments a couple years ago, adding that it’s important to know where a gift comes from.

To which I reply, eh. If you say so. I don’t think these parents are doing their kids any grave injustices by telling them the truth about Santa. I also love the way my just-turned two-year-old daughter’s eyes light up as she talks about Santa coming to her house. My husband says the only reason he believed in Santa for as long as he did is because he knew there was no way his parents could afford the toys that Santa brought. As someone who is relatively free from upper-middle class guilt (thank you, insufferable debt load), I think that’s one of the joys of Santa Claus as a parent. You can indulge your kids wants (or some of them) once a year without undermining the basic chorus of, “Sorry, that’s too expensive. No, you can’t have that. We can’t afford that, dear.”

I believed in Santa for a while, I guess, and then I didn’t. I don’t really remember when it happened and it certainly wasn’t traumatic. I’m the oldest of four, though, so I kept playing along for a long time which was fun. The whole myth is pretty out there, let’s face it, and when I started asking the right questions I think there might have been a bit of wink, wink, nudge, nudge from my parents. I don’t know exactly how I’ll deal with Santa questions as the kids get older. (Here’s what happened to Sweetney.) I’ll probably just wing it or dodge the question altogether.

The best part of this discussion is how riled up people get in the comments. Like, I for one think Santa is wonderful and who do you think you are?! Settle down, people, the Santa Claus propagators among us are still a clear majority and the fat man is going nowhere anytime soon. If only so we can distract the kids from the family politics happening at the dinner table.

The kids were so excited this morning. “Look, Mommy, it’s snow-y outside,” Irene practically sang as she jumped up and down in front of the window. Colum started crafting elaborate plans involving snow angels and snow men and all manner of snow-things.

I let them out into the backyard for two minutes while I set up Irene’s stroller to walk Colum to the school bus. In those two minutes, Irene thoroughly soaked her mitts, leaving her with little bright red fingers for the entire walk there and back, and Colum managed to wedge snow into the space between his coat collar and his hat. This after a full ten-minute bundling-up session.

After school, we will shovel the driveway and the walks and brush snow off the car and track puddles throughout the house.

They are so excited and I am not. But I really wish I were.

Who wouldn’t exercise more often if it was more like fun and less like torture? Fitness columnist Nat shares a great way to get some semblance of an abdominal wall post baby. ~Rebecca

by Natalie Kerr

Zumba has jumped onto the scene offering expectant and new mothers a fun-fused workout that delivers a strong core punch with lots of Latin flavours. It is a Latin-inspired dance/fitness experience which takes dancers and non-dancers alike through a mixture of easy and different dance movements. There is salsa, merengue, reggaton (my favorite) and more accompanied by brilliant international music. Zumba is all about the fun factor which makes it the perfect workout for moms looking for a little me time

We stayed over with some friends last weekend and spent a nice long evening preparing dinner and sipping wine and catching up. When it was finally ready we set the table and served up generous portions of beef and mushroom stew, beets, carrots and salad to two four-year olds, two two-year olds and four adults.

The stew was good. And then it was gone. We joked about how it was a good thing we didn’t invite my sister over after all and then about how you could make a good portion out of the kids’ leftovers. We laughed it off and kept chatting. Finally, I reached over and pulled Colum’s plate toward me. In an instant my friend grabbed her daughter’s plate and we happily threw good manners out the window. Did I mention the stew was good?

We just finished reading Stuart Little as our bedtime story, chapter by chapter over a couple weeks. It was really fun for the first couple days and then less so as two-year-old Irene became impatient with the lack of pictures and sophisticated language. Colum loved it, though, and so did I, so we persevered. Last night I was looking forward to making short work of story time and let each kid choose a small picture book.

Irene chose a story called Worse than Rotten Ralph about a trouble-making cat and Colum chose Dr. Suess’ Hop on Pop. Perfect. Except when I opened Hop on Pop Colum started to read the book himself and then proceeded to read the entire thing from start to finish, each and every word. Yes, it’s a simple first reader book and he’s very familiar with it. But he was really focusing on each word and working them all out with only minimal prompting from me.

I am so proud. It’s a swollen heart, dance down the stairs kind of proud. He’s only four and a half and I don’t know if this counts as reading per se, but it is close. Very, very close.

It never ceases to amaze me how my kids just seem learn things all at once and seemingly on their own. I thought Irene could only count to three until one day I heard her count to twelve. And then Colum just picks up a book and freaking reads it.

Blows my mind.

Of course, there was nothing fast about that story time either. Sigh. Irene will just have to deal, I guess.

Sat. Nov. 27 at 11am and 2pm; and Sun. Nov. 28 at 1pm and 3pm. Masonville Place in London, Ontario.

Join me for story time this weekend as part of Playhouse Disney’s birthday tour of Ontario malls. I will be reading one of the wonderful Stella and Sam stories by Canadian author Marie-Louise Gay to promote a new animated series based on the books. There will also be games, activities and giveaways happening all day; it’ll be fun!

I looked up to the top of the slide,

And there was my little boy,

Explaining how it was all going down.

First, he would roll the little green tractor down the slide,

And then, “We’ll all go down after it!”

The other three boys nodded excitedly.

They all rushed back to the top and this time it was somebody else’s turn.

“OK, now you push it down and you slide down first.”

He even made them wait for his little sister to catch up.

“Irene! Irene! Irene!”

They were all calling for her as she made her way to the slide.

Again and again,

Colum directed the little game,

Making sure everyone had a turn,

And they all played happily.

I worry about him being a loner,

But maybe he just needs to be a leader.