And to All a Good Night
Over the past month or so, I’ve read The Night Before Christmas to Lucia and Greta probably a hundred times. Both of them took to the story, and it was a relief to me to have this framework—the descriptions, the illustrations—to help me explain the whole idea of Santa. I’d been talking about Santa for a while, and Lucia watched a Dora episode about Santa a bunch of times, so she definitely understood the concept. But I felt like every time I brought it up, I had to add a new, perplexing detail—he flies in a sleigh pulled by reindeer; he visits when you’re sleeping; he lands on the roof; he comes down the chimney. It is bizarre to piece it apart this way, each element more incredible than the last. But somehow it all added up coherently for Lucia, who, throughout December, eagerly talked about what she wanted Santa to bring her (a wand and a pillow). On Christmas Eve, we went to the annual Orlando Christmas Eve party, the climax of which is “Santa’s” appearance to dole out joke ...