Stop Lying to Your Kids About Santa

They deserve a Norman Rockwell Christmas, dammit!

When my kids were growing up, they had no idea that their mother was Mrs. Santa Claus in disguise.

The day after Thanksgiving was when our Christmas traditions started. First there was choosing the perfect Christmas tree at the local tree farm. It had to be a Blue Spruce evergreen tree, no more than six feet tall. The tree roots needed to be in a ball wrapped in burlap so we could plant it in the yard after Christmas was over. Since the tree was always placed in a corner in the living room, we were more lenient about bare spots that could be hidden in the back of the tree. It also made standing in the freezing cold to find a tree end faster, too. Apparently there is no such thing as the “perfect” tree.

Our Christmas tree was placed in the garage for a few days inside a large galvanized tub so it could be watered and kept alive until New Year’s Day. It was in the garage to acclimate from freezing temperatures to a pleasant 75°F every day. Once the tree was in the house, it was a family project to decorate it better than the year before.

Weeks of baking an enormous variety of Christmas cookies, candies, and pumpkin rolls was the next tradition. There’s nothing better than the licorice aroma of Pizzelle cookies to clear your…