I have never been able to fully embrace Santa Claus, even when our children were young enough to believe the magical tale of the fat man in a red suit, who dropped down the chimney with a bag of toys.  The grooves in the records from my strict Mennonite upbringing were cut too deeply to ignore. The tradition of Santa Claus was considered secular, in light of the true meaning of Christmas. To add insult to injury, telling your trusting children that Mr. Claus was responsible for their gifts, or that the Easter Bunny brought them baskets of chocolates, was dishonest, really a close relative to lying. Yes, that was the literal world of my childhood. 

My devout mother was influenced by some who followed an even more rigid path: since the celebration of our Savior's birth had become so commercialized, we would avoid getting even close to that line by not exchanging Christmas gifts. I have to tell you that the worst part of not getting presents was the dreaded first day back at school after New Years. In the spirit of good will and cheer, the teachers inevitably would go around the classroom and have each child regale what they received for Christmas. I honed my embellishment skills under their tutelage; a cheap pack of stationary from a friend became an exquisite correspondence kit. A simple board game gifted to our whole family was repackaged as personal home entertainment. Only when the rounds were over and we could take out our textbooks, did I breathe a sigh of relief. 

The Easter Bunny received a similar, cold reception. Easter was about crosses, suffering, death and resurrection. Chocolate candy and tie-dyed eggs had no part in that story. When I was seven years old, we lived next door to the Long family; their two kids, Whitney and Marty, were just younger than me and were my frequent playmates. In the week leading up to Easter, Mrs. Long pulled me aside one day and asked me please not to have any conversations with her children about the Easter Bunny. I'm sure she was (correctly) concerned that I would spill the jelly beans and instruct Marty and Whitney that DNA testing had confirmed the wild hare's true origin: a lying adult in a rabbit suit. 

Early Sunday morning, we spied Mrs. Long's blonde hair as she passed under our window on her way back to her house. On our front porch was a large basket filled with candy. Not knowing what to do with such straight-laced neighbors, she wanted us to believe the magic too. With candy as payment, I personally was happy to be bribed into silence. Somehow I thought Jesus would understand that I wasn't trying to diminish or pollute the sacred; like any kid, I just wanted a chocolate bunny of my own, with the only dilemma being should the ears be bitten off first or the tail?!

A quarter of a century later when I was a mother to my own brood of kiddies, I could never bring myself to pretend that Santa Claus really lived at the North Pole. We read stories and took photos at the mall, but I always told them it was make believe. We talked a lot about the true meaning of Christmas, how Jesus came to earth from heaven as a baby to be our Savior. And they knew the presents were from us. 

The Easter Bunny was reduced to a small stuffed animal in the candy-filled baskets, left outside the front door by their parents on Easter morning. My kids knew the drill: the baskets had to wait until we got home from church and they had changed out of their fancy clothes. Of course we taught them from the Bible about the true meaning of Easter, about Jesus' death and resurrection. 

For some unknown reason, one mythical creature managed to escape censorship and was permitted to live and breathe in my children's psyche: the Tooth Fairy. Perhaps as a way to make amends for dismissing the others, we fully embraced this delicate, ethereal, molar-loving nymph. The angst of whether to pull the tooth out, or wiggle it back and forth until it fell out was a painful choice, but they never doubted what to do once the bloody, porcelain tooth with the horned roots, was in their hand. It was tenderly hidden under their pillow at bedtime. Early the next morning, with a shriek of excitement, the child would emerge from their bedroom, triumphantly waving a dollar bill in the air. That Tooth Fairy had flown in while they were asleep and had made the exchange. Oh yes they believed!!

There were a few times when the Tooth Fairy's reliability was called into question. Once on a frigid, Montana morning, she failed to make an appearance. A dejected young Derek emerged from his bedroom, tooth in hand. I vouched for her character and gave the only explanation I knew: the temperature had dropped below zero during the night, causing those delicate wings to freeze and impede her flight. I had it on good authority that whenever this happened, the tiny, winged creature left double the next night. Derek was delighted that she did not prove me wrong. 

The next time there was a problem, it definitely was a parent's fault. Larry and Lauren were out doing Saturday errands together. Overshadowing everything that day was the fact that Lauren's tooth was hanging by a thread. Her little tongue kept finding it and wiggling until suddenly, while they were in a store, it came out. For safekeeping, until Lauren could get it under her pillow, they agreed to carefully wrap the tooth in a tissue, and place it in the front pocket of Larry's pants. Several hours later, they stopped on the way home to refuel the car. Being the tidy, efficient person that he is, Larry used the time it took to gas up, to clean out his pockets. Just after he threw the "trash" into the deep, gas station trashcan, he realized what he had done. Lauren was beside herself, and felt certain he should dive right into that garbage and rescue her tooth. Larry convinced her that he couldn't safely do that; he had made a mistake, but if she left the Tooth Fairy a note about the extenuating circumstances, the flighty creature would understand. That tear-stained note elicited the big bucks from our resident fairy. 

In the way of the universe, the Tooth Fairy appeared less diligent with each of our successive children, almost like she was trying to make us look bad. Early one morning, I carefully slid my hand under the pillow of a sleeping six year old Derek. Alas, I felt the hard tooth between my fingers. Early streaks of morning light were already stretching across the sky, far beyond the safe hours for that winged creature to be about. I was going to have to cover for her this time! I ran for my wallet, but like old mother hubbard, the cupboard was bare. 

I was faced with that shared parental dilemma the whole first world over: should I borrow from Peter's bank to pay Paul, knowing that by tomorrow, I would go to the ATM machine and extract cash to pay back Peter, who would be none the wiser for the fresh air his money had received? Our kids' banks were lined up on a shelf in the study. Larry had put great thought into these banks, wanting to use them as a teaching tool for impressionable young minds. They were made of transparent plastic and were divided into three compartments. Each week he would give the children their allowance in coins, ten cents for every year of life. For example, at six, they received 60 cents. They would divide up their money, thus learning about fractions, with a percentage going into the saving slot, some into the giving category, and some set aside for spending. At the end of the year, Larry would have them each count the money they had saved, and he would gift them with 10% of that amount. Its never too early to learn that compounding interest can actually work for you. And we would exchange coins for bills, a visible sign of the delayed gratification. 

On this particular tooth-fairy-less morning, I reached into Christopher's bank and grabbed a dollar bill, knowing that I would have another one deposited by that afternoon. I slipped the money under Derek's pillow just as he was stirring in his sleep. I breathed a sigh of relief when I got back outside the bedroom without being detected. Derek was the last one down to the breakfast table; with his goofy toothless grin, he sat down opposite his brother, waving his trophy in the air. I saw ten year old Christopher's eyes widen in surprise and then he leaned forward and scrutinized the one dollar bill. "That is my dollar," he yelled. "You have my dollar!" Of course Derek assured his older brother that, no, it was his, a gift last night from the Tooth Fairy. I can still picture the indignation on Christopher's face. I ran behind Derek's back and filled the air with giant pantomimes and hand gestures, which must have been undecipherable, since Christopher kept yelling that the dollar was his. I would venture to say that it was not one of my finest maternal moments.

I finally managed to get my oldest son into another room and out of Derek's hearing, I confessed my dark deed of "borrowing". I assured him that I was planning to put another one back in his bank and how did he really recognize, out of all the millions of one dollar bills, that Derek was holding his? With great confidence, he said that the bill had a particular blue-hued serial number which he recognized as his own, and could he please have it back? Who knew that he studied the serial numbers! Be sure your sin will find you out. Or perhaps "no good deed goes unpunished" is a better description. I'm going to blame it on the Tooth Fairy.