Last December, as I do every year, in honor of what most parents know down deep is the true purpose of the holidays, I set out to find a new way to dupe my children about the existence of magic in the world. My son was 4, my daughter was 7 and the job of enchanting them with winter myths, from toy-maker elves to peace on earth, was getting more difficult. It wasn’t just that they were growing older; the problem was that I was aging, too. Twice divorced and in my 40s, I’d learned that deception, no matter how well intentioned, is really a form of moral layaway. Our lies are like gifts we’ve put on hold at Macy’s: the day always comes to pick them up and pay for them. Still, because I had a pretty good trick planned, I suppressed my qualms and drove into town to a crafts store for supplies. I picked out a strip of raw leather, a few tin bells and a bolt of red felt. Back home, in my garage, I got busy turning them into props for the illusion that I’d dreamed up: a sleigh crash.
The scenario had a slightly morbid feel, but given recent world events, which had a profoundly morbid feel, a touch of darkness seemed appropriate. And it wouldn’t be a disastrous sort of accident, just a minor mishap in the snow. “St. Nicholas must have drunk too much punch,” I’d quip as I showed my children the debris field. If the illusion was convincing, my kids would bend down and touch a dented sleigh bell, a tattered length of rein or a torn corner of Santa’s suit, and they’d think to themselves: This is a wonderful life. Our dad’s been telling us the truth!
Some parents, I reflected as I worked, scratching the leather with a nail and bashing the bells with a hammer, did tell their children the truth at Christmastime. (The cool parents, we called them when I was growing up.) Their kids then disillusioned the rest of us: The North Pole is really Target. This made these kids seem cool as well — it gave them a swagger. But it gave me a stomachache. Their theory made sense, and there was evidence for it, but what did this say about my parents, I wondered? That they’d never matured and really believed in elves? Or that they understood the facts full well but deemed me incapable of handling them? Whatever my parents’ reasons for misinforming me, I concluded that it was wisest not to catch them at it. If I unwrapped a present and glimpsed a Target sticker that they’d forgotten to peel off, I’d pretend not to see it. Then, when they weren’t looking, I’d peel it off myself.
I spread the bells, cloth and leather around the yard, remembering how it felt at Christmas to have to show wonderment on command. The skill with which I’d learned to play the fool, to gamely roll over for others’ frauds, beginning with those perpetrated by my parents, had not served me well as a person, I decided. Maybe, I thought, I should make another plan.
It was only 8 at night, and I wouldn’t be picking my kids up from their mother’s house until 11 the next morning, so there was still time to start over, to stop the cycle. Instead of staging a sleigh crash for my kids and forcing us all to dwell in falsehood, I could, perhaps, prepare a talk on art. “Christmas is a work of art,” I’d say, “and art is a lie that tells the truth.” How complicated. And did I really want to give my children literary criticism for Christmas?
Still unsure about my course, I left the bits of wreckage in the yard, since I could always retrieve them in the morning. Then I went to bed. I didn’t dream of sugarplums — I didn’t dream at all. I crashed, which I tend to do when problems loom. And when I woke up the whole thing seemed unimportant, at least when compared with wrapping presents, baking up a tube of cinnamon rolls and bringing the kids back to the ranch.
(The ranch. I should have mentioned that. I live in Montana, on a ranch, and residing with me part time has taught my children a lot about how animals — deer, specifically — really live and die.)
“What’s that stuff?” my daughter said as we neared the house, all cheery from singing carols in the car.
It snowed in the night but not enough to hide the evidence of Dad’s insanity. I stood very still and eyed the impact site, which I’d half-decided to clean up but hadn’t gotten to in time. Then I glanced over at Charlie, my little boy. He seemed confused and apprehensive. He stayed by my side as his trusty older sister, a bright, inquisitive girl, investigated.
“These could be pieces of sleigh,” she finally said.
I couldn’t help feeling gratified by this, since I’d put in a lot of effort on my scheme. Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing after all, just a bit of lively Christmas mischief that would be remembered someday with smiles.
“Like maybe a reindeer crash?” I said.
“Maybe it is,” my daughter said. She cast a look at Charlie, who was suddenly showing signs of coming undone and possibly even “going No. 3” (my daughter’s term for throwing up). I could see in her eyes comprehension and then compassion — compassion not only for her anxious brother but also for her aging, conflicted, deceitful father. “Except that if it were a real crash, there’d be blood,” she said. “Blood and fur. So I guess things are O.K.”
And things were O.K. that Christmas — or, at least, as O.K. as things can be.
“Come on, you little angels — inside,” I said. “Let’s go find out what Santa brought from Target.”
