"Positive Neurons" and Santa Claus

About a week or two ago, J and Sam were playing Twenty Questions. Sam was thinking of a person, and Jeremy asked if the person was real. Sam said, "Kind of. He's a myth." It turned out that Sam was thinking about Santa Claus. We have never spoken with Sam about Santa Claus being a myth before. In fact, a few years ago he stumped us in Twenty Questions by claiming that he was thinking of a "real person" when he had Santa in mind. But J and I decided we needed to sit down with him before this Christmas Eve, so we could figure out what he has heard and what he is thinking about Santa.

Tonight ended up being a good opportunity for me to do so. Sam and Lucy wrote their letters to Santa tonight - Lucy even "wrote" (i.e. traced) half of the letters on her page and signed her name by herself on Sam's letter! I love that Sam included a winking emoji after his opening question. After we folded up the letters in an envelope and I got Lucy in bed, I sat down to have a talk with Sam about Santa.

I asked Sam why he told J that Santa was a myth. Sam explained that he half-believed in Santa, and half-believed that he was a myth. His biggest doubt was that Santa should have been a record holder for multiple categories in his copy of The Guinness Book of World Records ("Fastest Distance Traveled," "Longest Distance Traveled," "Least Seen Person"), but he isn't listed anywhere. What an endearing and perceptive conclusion to make!

I felt like I needed to tread carefully in our conversation, because I want the spirit of Santa and the magic of Christmas to be real to Sam. And what I decided to do was tell Sam that he is old enough to learn a secret: Santa is real, but he is more than one person, and Sam now can assume the special role of being a "Santa" himself. I explained that the role of Santa is to help keep the spirit and magic of Christmas alive for other people, which means that a true Santa will never encourage someone to not believe in Santa Claus. Instead, a true Santa strives to help keep the spirit and magic of Santa alive through love and generosity.

Sam was so darling through all of this conversation. He said, "Well, that makes sense to not discourage people from believing in Santa because The Santa Claus Book says that Santa is kept alive from the positive neurons that come from people who believe in him." I double checked this point after our conversation and found that the book discusses how the magnetism of the North Pole pulls "positive ions" up north, which lengthens Santa's life (p. 38). But I latched onto Sam's observation and we talked about how we want to encourage people to emit "positive neurons" when they think about Santa.

Anyhow, I think the conversation went really well. Sam is excited to encourage Lucy to believe in the magic of Santa Claus, and I said that he could help to fill her stocking and Violet's stocking this year. He really felt proud to assume this responsibility and graciously initiated a "thank you" and a hug at the end of our conversation. I sure love this sweet boy, and I'm so glad that he wants to keep Christmas magic alive.