I love/hate Santa

Today's flavor: Fruitcake. It's pretty, often nutty and seems like a good idea...but can anyone really swallow this stuff?

I confess. I hate Santa Claus. At 10, 7 and 4, my kids still believe, and I'm sick of it. It is now a few days after Christmas, and I'm still bitter. I shopped until my credit cards bled, wore out my Uggs, fought crowds and browsed online until I was seeing double. I wrapped 109 presents; sent out 223 cards; went to the post office 17 times; doled out 14 cash "bonuses" to various service providers; Lord save me, I even baked! And I saw nary a single partridge in a pear tree. I was stressed out, worn out and buried under a to do list that couldn't be accomplished by an army of elves. And who gets all the credit, gratitude and adoration for everything I did to make the season brighter? You guessed it. Old fatty himself - Santa. The worst thing is that I've told my kids approximately 257 lies to keep the "magic" alive.

So was it worth it? There must be something I'm enjoying about perpetuating this somewhat disturbing idea of an old fat guy that stalks us (you know, he sees you when you're sleeping, etc.) decides who's deserving of goodies, and then mysteriously gets into our homes late at night demanding snacks. I don't know, but aside from the fact that I don't want to incur the wrath of the uber-moms, I just can't help enjoying that twinkling in the eyes when the little ones talk about Santa. Maybe it's because there are so few things that make my evil little monsters act like angels, and maybe it's because I like to dangle the threat of narcing them out to Santa when they misbehave. It could be that it's nice to have someone to blame when they don't get all 422 items on their list. And it could be the very thought of the end of believing signaling the end of childhood. But, when the mood is just right, and I'm sitting by the fire in a rum-laced-egg-nog induced haze, I just love Santa.