Truthfully, I don’t ever remember believing in Santa. I don’t say this to sound cynical and world-weary; them’s the facts. I do remember little seeds of doubt and disappointment: when I lost my first tooth and my dad woke me up replacing it with a dollar, when I spent Easter with my grandparents and they told me my mom had stopped by in the middle of the night to drop off my Easter basket, when I got a bike for Christmas and heard the gears click as my dad wheeled it through the hallway past my bedroom. I can’t pinpoint the specific day or occasion when I lost my faith, but I don’t think it was gradual. All I remember is a subtle, disappointing letdown. And thinking to myself that maybe if the grown-ups in my life tried a little bit harder to keep up the charade, I would have been convinced. I wanted to believe, but I couldn’t ignore the facts.

Nick and Natalie are now almost 9, and as far as we can tell, still believe in Santa. They are the babies of the family, and I think we all try a little harder to keep it going, knowing that once the jig is up for them, it’ll be several (SEVERAL) years before we’ve got more babies in the family to lie to. Maybe it’s because it was never a particularly salient time in my life, but the whole Santa thing kind of weirds me out. I’m not a total Scrooge, and I wouldn’t purposefully shatter their illusions, but I’ll be relieved when this phase of the twins’ lives is behind us and we can all go to bed at a reasonable hour on Christmas eve instead of staying up late to wrap stocking stuffers, and then all sleep in until a reasonable hour on Christmas day, secure in knowing that the morning hasn’t brought any presents that weren’t already under the tree the night before.