To Santa or Not to Santa

This has been the dilemma for Filbert and me. We thought we had decided that we would not do Santa and always present him as a legend or a fairy tale, if it came up. We reckoned not with Walnut. This charming little lad of ours has bought into the Santa hype, hook, line and sinker and there is no talking him out of it. A couple months ago, he would have said that Santa was not real, but no more. It all began when we went the Courthouse lighting in Newton, IA. There was a parade and Santa was there and in the words of Walnut "He looked right at me and he waved at me". It was like no one else was there in the town square as Santa and Walnut had a "moment". We've tried to counteract this in various ways. I found a website about St. Nicholas and read him stories about the real St. Nick (who, I was surprised to learn, calmed the seas once) and explained how the stories of St. Nicholas turned into the legend of Santa Claus, but he's not buying it. For him Santa is real and he believes it with his whole heart. The public schools aren't helping us out, either. Yesterday, in Kindergarten, all the kids got a boarding pass to "The Polar Express" and got to wear jammies to school. He came home and asked me if I believed in Santa and I told him no. He said that I wouldn't hear the bell that he produced from his backpack. He rang it and I heard it and after the look of great consternation that crossed his face, he concluded that I must really believe in Santa Claus, after all.