I was late in finding out there really was no Santa Claus. Sure, there were kids at school who used to try and spoil it for me, but I would just reply, "My parents would never lie to me." Keep in mind too, that I had no brothers and sisters to ruin the fun for me either.

Honestly, I think I was around 10 before I figured it out. (maybe older).

We always spent Christmas eve at my grandmother's. This specific year, she had gotten a camcorder to record our Christmas memories. They put me to bed. The next day after we'd unwrapped all of our gifts, we decided to watch the tape of the day's festivities. The tape started off with our arrival the night before, and then progressed in to after I had gone to bed.

There they all were: Mom, Dad, Grams, and Papa putting out the gifts Santa had supposedly brought me. And of course, eating all the yummy cookies I had put out. I just watched in disbelief. I really wish I could have taped all of their faces sitting there, with looks of "Oh shit" on their faces. I got up and left the room, and went straight to the bathroom. The next two hours consisted of me sitting in the bathtub crying my eyes out. I seriously felt like the world had ended. What is there to look forward to? What magic exists in life?

Mom said she remembers me looking up and saying, "I suppose you're going to tell me now that there is no Easter Bunny either." She said it was awful.

I look back on it and think, "God, I was a moron." But it's kind of nice to reflect back on when life was easy and we didn't always have to be realists to shield ourselves from getting hurt. At least we allowed ourselves to feel more then.

Head on over to Josh's page and read guestblogger Ryan's post. It's one of my favorite stories.

Posted by Lawren at December 24, 2003 10:50 AM

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