Santa's Days Are Numbered Around Here (And The Elf Never Got Through The Door To Begin With)

Saw a post on Facebook or somewhere the other day suggesting that parents have Santa give their children smaller gifts, while the bigger gifts come from the parents.  Given that some families have a lot more money than others, this makes sense: not too cool for Santa to bring one kid an iPad and the latest XBOX or Playstation or whatever while he brings the kid's best friend a hat and mittens.

Last year, I went to the trouble of using separate wrapping paper and gift labels--and even handwriting and pen color: yes, I'm nuts--for the kids' gifts from Santa (as opposed to their gifts from us.)  This year, I made a conscious decision not to bother.  Just got to be too much hassle to figure out which gifts which kid was receiving from Santa, in light of the sentiment above.  Besides which, any kid savvy enough to be paying attention to wrapping paper in all the excitement of Christmas morning is too old to believe in Santa anyway, IMHO.  

My kids are 7, 9 and 11.  If Thing One actually still believes in Santa, I'm a purple dinosaur.  He's never said anything about it, and he's way too nice a kid to spoil things for his younger siblings, but his Jewish best friend accidentally spilled the beans at school years ago and I'm sure he's long since figured things out.  I doubt that Thing Two has ever given it much thought, and Petunia is still pretty young, but I guarantee that neither of them will be looking at gift labels and wrapping paper and if Thing One does this year, oh well.  He's eleven, for Pete's sake.  Boy-girl dances and Santa probably shouldn't coexist anyway.

Bah, humbug.

The presents are wrapped, and that should count for something, dammit.  Even if Santa's aren't clearly distinguishable.

And don't get me started on that damned elf, wherever it might be located.  The line in the sand has been drawn.  This far, no further!