Santa's Watching

Santa’s Watching

The December drama for a room “mum” does not end with nativity costumes. The next step in the creation of the perfect childhood scenario of winter here in England includes the traditional “Santa’s Grotto.” While the name is simply another of the humorous semantic differences between the U.S. and UK versions of the English language, this one for me conjures up images of Hugh Hefner in a Santa suit surrounded by his gaggle of blonde, merry elves, which makes me uncomfortable when we discuss creating this land of make-believe for children. However, the grotto of Santa is steeped in British tradition and if there’s one thing you learn living in England it’s that you don’t mess with tradition.

Santa’s Grotto has a fairly straightforward checklist of requirements: decorations, gifts for the children – oh and a volunteer to act as Santa. It’s the last one that led to me nearly being labeled as the mum who killed Christmas.

“There’s no money in the budget to hire a Santa,” I was told by the PTA committee. The same PTA committee, incidentally, who 2 months ago requested a parent’s poll in order to generate ideas for spending the ₤3,000 (that’s equivalent to $6,000 U.S.) they raised last year for no apparent reason.

“And the person needs to be CRB checked (criminal background report which takes 3-4 months to complete), and we don’t want a member of staff because the children will recognize them.” So no problem – just go out and find a man who has a CRB certificate, who is available on a Friday afternoon for 2.5 hours to sit in a fat suit and shout “Ho Ho Ho” for FREE! Don’t you know tons of men who would love to do that?

Because it’s human nature that we are less kind to the ones we love, the first person I asked was my husband. His interest was peaked a bit by the request to be part of a “Grotto,” but as soon as I dispelled the Playboy image that immediately sprung to his mind; he did not simply decline, but thoroughly rejected me by laughing in my face. “A 6’3”, 185 pound Santa is ridiculous.” Offers of unlimited and uninhibited sex weren’t even enough to rope him into it. Since that was all I had to bargain with, I urged other mom’s in our class to try similar tactics with their husbands, but we soon realized that many of us had already used the sex card for some other horrible holiday, family or work event we needed them to escort us to, so we came up empty handed.

On breaking the news to the PTA that we would be having a Christmas Grotto with no Santa, the e-mails came pouring in. “This cannot be. My children will be disappointed if they don’t see Santa at the fair.” “How will I tell my child that Santa was too busy to visit their school this year?” and my personal favorite, “My son will be gutted by this devastating news.” Seriously?

Only then did I fully realize that this Santa’s Grotto wasn’t for the children at all – it was for the parents. These moms seemed a bit too distressed by the idea of their children experiencing “disappointment.” They really don’t know how to parent unhappiness.

I’m all for protecting kids against emotional scars – wouldn’t everyone like to see a world where psychiatrists go out of business due to the overwhelming state of joy around the globe? However damaging, disappointment is a messy and necessary part of life. Learning to discuss it with your children and helping them work through it by managing your own reaction to it is an important part of building the character of your future adult.

A wave of panic and pandemonium swept almost instantly through the PTA e-mail chain due to the obvious need to restore perfect order and harmony and eliminate the need for character building. Eventually some arm-twisting was done and monumental ideological concessions were made to solicit a teacher’s assistant from one of the classes to act as Father Christmas.

With that crisis averted, I was under the impression the remainder of the grotto was in good order. But the Practically Perfect Parents club never rests.

10 am on the morning of the fair:
PTA Nazi: “What time are you planning on meeting to decorate?”
Me: “Noon”
PTA Nazi: “That only gives you 1 ½ hours to decorate.”
Me: “Yes, there are three of us, and it is a fairly small shed, so we should be just fine.”
PTA Nazi: “You must budget time to handle disasters. For instance, what if you are half way through decorating and find you run out of tinsel? What is your contingency plan?”
Me: “Well, I suppose we will have to live with less tinsel.”
PTA Nazi is stunned into codfish-like, slack jawed silence as she imagines the decades of therapy her children will require having been faced with a tinsel-deficient tree. Oh, the horror!
PTA Nazi: “If I were you and I were running the grotto, I would be decorating right now.”
Me: “Actually if you were me, you wouldn’t be so uptight, so I doubt it.” Ok – that part I just said in my head, but really wished I had the guts to say out loud.

Once the grotto was picture perfect by 12:30, the other 2 elves and I celebrated over a glass of mulled wine while we helped our reluctant hero plump with pillows and stuff his thick black hair into the white, curly wig. PTA Nazi stuck her head in fully expecting to be able to criticize. After taking a look around at the winter wonderland of rich, red fabrics, beautiful fairy lights, and garland that perfectly coordinated with the tree decorations, she was quiet. It was Pottery Barn Perfect, as I purchased all of these matching items on clearance after Christmas several years ago. “His eyebrows are black. I suppose no one thought to bring some white pencil to make him realistic,” she said turning on her heels to leave before any of us could chuck our cups of Christmas cheer in her face.

The realization that this Santa’s grotto is all about the parents became more of an epiphany as I enjoyed the perspective of an Elf watching these children being brought to visit Santa. As the other elves and I observed the behaviors of the 200+ children that came through the door we couldn’t help but notice something that should be obvious to everyone. Children are terrified of Santa Claus.

Parents were pushing and prodding their petrified children, “Just sit next to Santa for a picture.” If they didn’t scream in protest, it was only because they were perhaps only more frightened of their parents. The ones who came willingly only stepped forward because they had either already lost the magical belief in the miracle of reindeer flight, and/or were eager to tease and insult the man they recognized was not in fact Santa Claus but an imposter who earlier that day sat them in the time out spot on the playground for playing Star Wars Jedi’s vs. Transformers a bit too realistically.

“Why do you think these children are so scared of Santa?” my sister-elf asked while we were clearing up the afternoon with a second glass of mulled wine. “Do you think it’s the white hair and the loud voice booming, Ho, Ho, Ho that makes them apprehensive?”

Actually, I think grandparent figures are generally loved and perceived by children to be safe, and kind. But Santa is someone entirely different than grandpa. He's more like a scary Uncle.

As kids, many of us were taught to fear God because he would stand over us on judgment day and replay all of our sins on some sort of big screen TV for everyone to see. Obedience was extracted through fear. We may have rejected teaching the concept of God as a vengence-seeking overloard to our children, but still turn to Santa Claus to be the heavy when it comes to monitoring behavior. He’s the bad cop to our good cop. “It’s not me who won’t buy you that toy. It’s Santa who will bring you a lump of coal.” It’s next-to-impossible to promise both unconditional love and strict consequences for unwanted behavior. So we must hide behind an all-knowing, all-seeing entity that can provide equal and just rewards and consequences.

Take a moment to think about what you (or other parents if you are a member of the Practically Perfect Parents club and therefore unable to self-actualize) are saying to your children this time of year “You’d better watch out. Santa sees you misbehaving.” The words to the songs we sing are terrifying, “He sees you when you’re sleeping…he knows if you’ve been bad or good.” When these kids walk into Santa’s Grotto and he asks, “Have you been a good little girl/boy this year?” What can they say? They can’t blame the spill on their brother or say it was the other kid who started it. He KNOWS. Kids aren’t inherently good. That’s why they have parents and teachers and Ritalin. They sometimes have to be threatened and forced into good behavior, and this white bearded man in red is the guy who sees just exactly how bad they have been. It’s their day of reckoning.

Parents aren’t inherently good either. We’re just bigger children who are now in the position to buy our own toys. Our day of reckoning comes when our children reach their teens. You'd better watch out....You'd better not cry.....