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Eeesh! Get the new house on Thursday and moving this weekend! Please don’t let there be a snowstorm!
As an early Christmas present to you guys there’ll be bonus pages up this Friday and next :)
Getting into the Christmassy feeling early with a reindeer vote image that got me thinking: we’ve not decided yet how militant we’re going to be about the whole Santa thing. Sam is only vaguely aware of the concept and he doesn’t understand that Xmas means presents too. He’s just fixated on the lights on all the houses and that’s about it. We don’t even have the tree up yet because I didn’t want to deal with keeping four grabby baby hands off it…plus moving. I’m not planning on skipping the idea of Santa but I’m not sure how I feel about emphasizing that whole ‘getting’ aspect of the holiday. I kind of like his attitude now, clueless though it may be, but I also don’t want to have the kid who ruined Christmas for everyone else and sent the whole kindergarten class home crying.
Do you get sent to the principal for that? :)
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December 17th, 2012 at 12:38 am
,,Mr.Cock“ o.o 0.o :O !!!!!!!!!! ^.^ (\o3o/) =3 >;3 :-P :D
December 17th, 2012 at 12:52 am
All hands, secure the tree!
beware the fingers that grab
the hands that pull
or fall comes at least once more this year
something …something
December 17th, 2012 at 1:51 am
So I could’ve sworn my roommate heard me bursting up laughing when I finished reading the first speech bubble on the 11th panel. XD
December 17th, 2012 at 2:41 am
eheheheh Vanity now has a shiner to match Gay’s
December 17th, 2012 at 10:09 am
Methinks Vanity is about to get more than just a shiner….
December 17th, 2012 at 11:32 am
Oh, yes. Please. :D
Don’t know what to tell you about Santa. My parents bailed on that way early on. I have no memories of waiting for Santa other than when I was four or something. Then again, I went to a Christian school, so most of us didn’t do the Santa thing anyway. I personally think doing the Santa thing is a lot of work to ultimately break your kids heart later on. Or make them feel foolish.
December 17th, 2012 at 12:01 pm
Santa? Sorry, can’t help you there, I’m Jewish. Although I did used to think that IF Santa did come down our chimney, he’d land on our tv set because I thought that all chimneys were connected to the family room because that’s where the fireplaces were. We don’t have a fireplace in our house–hence Santa would land on the tv. :)
Anyhow–geez that’s a creepy looking Peacock. What’s his name?
December 17th, 2012 at 3:49 pm
Geeze Vanity is going to get his butt kicked! (ha, bout time)
what my parents did was tell us about St Nicolas, and why he did what he did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas
in the spirit of St Nicolas, it is the giving of help when needed with out asking, and with out repayment.
In third grade the teacher that we had told us and I have no idea why because it had nothing to do with the lesson plan or what she was teaching, but it wasn’t really *up* to her, she stood up and said “I hope you kids don’t believe in Santa Claus because he doesn’t exist and he never did…Any questions?”
Well, believing what my parents said I promply raised my hand and she looked at me and I said “St Nicolas was a very real person who was the basis of the modern day Santa Claus… you should know that- we all do!!”
every kid in that class room was nodding with me and no I didn’t get sent to the principals office. When I went home I told my mom what she had said and my mom was like, “okaay well, go do your homework”
The whole thing about Santa Claus isn’t about the gimme grab gifting thing, it’s – well, yes, I believe in Santa Claus simply because I have seen things- people doing random acts of kindness through out the year. Total strangers going to stores and asking the manager if they could help pay off a couple of lay aways for people who have very little income and would be sacrificing their own food for presents for the kids. People who go to poor areas with coats and shoes for the kids and gift books to the schools.
people who drag a couple boxes of grocerys to some ones front porch, ring the bell and disapear into the night, – each and everyone of them is a santa claus.
as for the tree, wait a year, get a little one and put it in the playpen so the kids can see it, but can’t get to it. Or do paper ornaments and popcorn ornaments strung with twizzler strands.
I only have a christmas wreath that I have on my door and bells. yes, I have a christmas tree, and no, I don’t have any little ones to pull it down, but, after my fathers death, it was really really hard to put the tree up and I just can’t bring myself to do it. While its been a few years since his death, I just cant bring myself to put it up. Silly, I know.
December 17th, 2012 at 7:56 pm
my parents always told us that Santa was ‘just a nice story’ … but also emphasized the ‘giving’ rather than ‘getting’ aspect of the holidays, and it’s since been about getting a nice gift for other members of the family. A much better atmosphere I find. :)
December 17th, 2012 at 10:08 pm
Santa was some of the most fun I had when I was little. I eventually found out he wasn’t real when I discovered the presents one year in the closet, and when Christmas came around, the presents that I opened that said Santa on them had all been in that closet.
Anyways, I didn’t get upset by it. I didn’t go out and tell other kids he wasn’t real, cause I didn’t want to spoil the fun for everyone else. Santa was a helluva lot of fun as a kid. It’s big memories I’ll always remember, sitting on Santa’s lap, staying on the nice list. Leaving him cookies and milk, and some carrots and things for the reindeer.
It’s that next morning that was so magical. I’m sure for my parents it was like a game. Watching their kid’s be wowed that the milk was actually drank and cookie crumbs were all that was left, and half eaten carrots were left behind. Finding out that Santa somehow knew what was on our lists. THE best part was always the excitement of waking up to see if Santa had visited our house or not. It was always 5-6am, way before our parents wanted to be awoken, and the silence of the night, the glow of the christmas tree. And underneath that tree that was once empty just hours before had magically filled with presents. The stockings suddenly stocked.
The best part about being a kid is being naive. Everything is so much more fun when you’re oblivious to what’s going on and you go on about guessing and figuring out things with your friends. However wrong or right our answers may have been :)
Would you rather have known or not known as a kid Alison?
December 17th, 2012 at 11:42 pm
@richard: those fingers are usually pretty grubby too, and/or wet.
@Glowworm: I had a friend with no fireplace, he was concerned it would be an issue but I guess Santa always worked it out :) His name… Mr Cocky!
@kath, Janre-M: that approach is beautiful, I definitely want to emphasize the giving/sharing/holiday is about family thing. I think it will help that we don’t have cable and so far he’s not been exposed to any of the hyper commercialization of xmas, or kid’s tv in general.
@Beta: You know, I don’t remember very well what my thoughts were. I don’t have any clear idea of when I stopped believing or why. I do remember coming home from midnight masses when we were a bit older and we’d peer avidly out the car window thinking we might see Santa, but at that point the belief was wavering a bit I think. It didn’t make Christmas morning any more magical though :) I do vaguely recall someone at school being so pissed at their parents for “lying” to them about Santa and I definitely don’t want me kids to feel that way, like we were making fun of their ignorance or something.
December 18th, 2012 at 12:52 am
dressing up as santa for the little kids can be fun too.
“Ho Ho Ho, have you been good this year?”
“…”
“Waaaaaaaa!”
December 18th, 2012 at 1:05 am
I may have gotten into the whole Santa thing when I was little, I know I believed in the literal jolly old elf for a long time, but that was never the highlight of my Christmas. What I remember most are the traditions we made as a family – cutting down and decorating the Christmas tree, serving at the church’s Christmas Eve Breakfast early in the morning, reading the Polar Express on Christmas Eve night, making Christmas cookies. I don’t think Santa is the key, although he can definitely be a tool and a pathway if done correctly. If done incorrectly however, he can turn into a passive Bogeyman – “You’ve been bad this year? No toys for you!”
December 18th, 2012 at 4:04 am
I originally thought Vanity was gonna get attacked by the peahens, not the peacock.
December 18th, 2012 at 7:49 am
I think I was seven when my “likelihood a man in a flying sleigh could travel all around the world to hundreds of millions of homes in one night” meter clicked to the “probably not” side, but I didn’t have to guts to actually put the question flat out to my mom till around the time I turned nine… even though by then I was really just asking for confirmation of what I’d pretty much already concluded. I’m not sure now why I waited. I guess because I wanted to hold onto the idea it might be true, that there really were magical and inexplicable things in a world that, by that age, was fast becoming ordinary, predictable, and understandable. Sure, there were still impressive things, like flying faster than sound, going into space, or having computers right in your home, but they weren’t magical like the idea of Santa Claus.
Sometimes I think the real magic is that a world like this can still enable kids, generation after generation, to believe in Santa Claus for years on end at all. It wouldn’t take much to spoil it for millions of kids in a single shot, but somehow, that never seems to happen.
December 18th, 2012 at 1:05 pm
Either way you go, the choice will be right. The whole santa prospect lasts only about 3-4 years anyway. I think as long as you raise your kids to be humble and thoughtful of others, the likelihood of your kids being angry at santa not being real is slim to none.
I pretty much did what Sterling did. Asked to confirm what my beliefs were. Although it was more along the lines of “Santa isn’t real right?” I mean, the whole fact that santa somehow got into the house without a chimney and did it in a flash was always kinda fishy, but back between the ages of 5-9 magic was always one of those things you always wished were real.
December 18th, 2012 at 10:15 pm
I was raised to not believe in Santa Claus, for religious reasons.
In fact, we didn’t even celebrate Christmas for the secular connotations it has today. (this was a personal family rule) Anyways, I never missed santa claus, but I did want the gifts. I think it would be a good idea to maybe hold to the traditions, but develop your own reasons for gift givings. Reinforcing them as the “parasites” get older.
For me, it is a time where I celebrate the birth of Jesus by giving to those I appreciate and love. (Not wanting a religious argument. This is what I believe) Perhaps you, if you do not believe the same, can have a day to celebrate whatever and build your own personal holiday.
Personally, I don’t like the idea of telling the kids someone else got them presents. That would be my hard earned money, not some fatman in a suit. Youknowwhatimean?
June 10th, 2015 at 1:34 am
Wow i love how Vanity have such a vibrant vocabulary