Ho, Ho, Ho?

As we do every year, we went to visit Santa so that Princess could ask him for her Santa gift. This year was just a little bit different than past years. This Santa was rather snarky, rude and grumpy. What ever happened to jolly St. Nick?!

Santa asked Princess if she was "minding her momma" and she said no. She had no idea what he meant, so I explained to her that he was asking if she listened to me. He asked what she should do if I tell her to jump and when she said "Jump?", he said no,  you should ask how high. He asked her if she ate her vegetables (she doesn't). He asked her if she cleans up her room when I tell her to (I don't tell her to, although I may ask her to.). He told her that if she wants to be on Santa's "nice list" she needs to do all these things otherwise she'll go on the naughty list . . . or maybe Santa will just come whoop her because he's "old school".

Finally, Princess got to ask Santa for what she wanted from him. We explained that we celebrate Hanukka, but also that LK would be out of town during Hanukka so we were moving Hanukka and would he please bring her present during the time we are celebrating. He then started questioning if we "go to Shabbat" every week. Well, Shabbat is a day, not a place. I didn't bother explaining, I just said yes.

WTH?!?! I jumped in throughout the conversation, trying to move past what he was saying and make light of it. I don't want Princess' memories of Santa to be a bad experience.

Santa obviously had no clue who he was talking to. If I told Princess to jump, I would certainly hope that she would ask me why and not just follow random and ambiguous requests. After all, we are the radical unschoolers. We believe that being a child doesn't mean that she isn't a complete person. If I told LK or a friend to jump, I would certainly expect them to question it. Princess should question these things as well. I certainly don't want her following requests of adults simply because they are adults. Question everything.

And I'm assuming he was asking about going to synagogue every week, well being Humanistic Jews and atheists, no . . . we don't. LK said Santa was lucky he wasn't there. My goal was to keep the whole experience a positive one. I think I did that.