There are a lot of things that no one tells you about being a parent.  Like the need to always, always carry a roll of paper towels in your car just in case. Or to pad in an extra 15 minutes when trying to figure out when to leave for an event in case of blow outs or a toddler insisting on doing everything herself.  Or how funny you’ll find your kid even when they are being completely inappropriate (Bean’s new nickname for me? Mrs. Poopyhead.  Not at all acceptable, but freaking hysterical. The Hubs has to excuse himself after she calls me that so she doesn’t see him laugh).

I was also never told how hard it is to be Santa.

When we were little, my parents rocked at being Santa. I can’t remember 99.9% of the gift I received, but I can tell you about the letters we got from Santa every year.  Each of us kids got one- they were always hidden at the very end of our present pile to prolong the suspense.  They were typically a long poem with a few stanzas about what we did that year- accomplishments, goals reached, milestones- a discussion on how proud Santa was of us and then a stanza with a riddle to answer. The answer to the riddle would lead us to our Big Gift of the year.  These letters from Santa, always written in my father’s very distinctive handwriting, continued long after we stopped believing and were the highlight of our mornings.

Since the kids were born, we’ve been able to keep the holidays pretty low key.  Last year was the first year Scorch started to catch on to the excitement so we ramped thing up a bit. But this year? Holy monkey, the boy’s head may explode.  Beaner is just super excited because Scorch is.  She has no idea what’s going on and Santa still freaks her out, but darn it- if Scorch is that excited, it’s gotta be good so she’s just as bouncy as he is.

Given that, I decided to try to write a poem for each kid this year.  Can’t be hard, right? I mean, I write for a living. I have a blog. I can totally write a short poem for each kid leading them to a gift, right?  Yeah.

So far, for Scorch I’ve got-

This year, you’re in a new class in school!
Isn’t that cool?

I wonder if I can get my father to write this for me?