“Ma!” Laura cried. “There IS a Santa Claus, isn’t there?”
“Of course there’s a Santa Claus,” said Ma. She set the iron on the stove to heat again.
“The older you are, the more you know about Santa Claus,” she said. “You are so big now, you know he can’t be just one man, don’t you? You know he is everywhere on Christmas Eve. He is in the Big Woods, and in Indian Territory, and far away in York State, and here. He comes down all the chimneys at the same time. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, Ma,” said Mary and Laura.
“Well,” said Ma. “Then you see–”
“I guess he is like angels,” Mary said, slowly. And Laura could see that, just as well as Mary could.
Then Ma told them something else about Santa Claus. He was everywhere, and besides that, he was all the time.
Whenever anyone was unselfish, that was Santa Claus.
Christmas Eve was the one time when everybody was unselfish. On that one night, Santa Claus was everywhere, because everybody, all together, stopped being selfish and wanted other people to be happy. And in the morning you saw what that had done.
“If everybody wanted everybody else to be happy, all the time, then would it be Christmas all the time?” Laura asked, and Ma said, “Yes, Laura.”
~ On the Banks of Plum Creek, “The Christmas Horses”
My very astute, very curious seven-year-old has decided, this year, to believe in Santa Claus. She’s using the sound reasoning that if he’s not real, he can’t bring her anything. Should she entertain more doubts next holiday season, I’m just going to refer her to Ma.
When my girls were in pre-school, one of their friends told them that Santa wasn’t real. They asked me about it and I told them that if you don’t believe in Santa, he won’t bring you anything and that the kids that don’t believe in Santa have to rely on Mom and Dad to buy presents for them. They both agreed that Santa is real and that they’ll always believe in Santa. They are 12 and 10 now, and as far as I know, they still believe in Santa. If they don’t, they haven’t let me know. I wish I would have thought to borrow from Ma, though. She was much wiser than I am.