christmas: joy and lies?

It's the night before christmas and I can't help feeling a little jaded by the way our society has turned this holy holiday into a commercial enterprise. I am staying at my parents' house along with my sister and 11 year old niece. My niece still believes in santa claus. Yes, she's convinced that all of the children at school are liars and the christmas shows on TV are irrefutible proof of his existence. Tonight the traditional cookies, milk, letter, and vegetable tray (for the reindeer) were left out when she went to bed. Before bed, my father and I took turns munching on the cookies, veggies, and milk. After that, I wrote a carefully composed response to her letter, especially from santa himself.

As our children are growing up, they're supposed to trust us, right? So why do we spend years reinforcing this outright lie and then pull it out from under them? I caught on to the gig when I was 7 and my parents were relieved to finally give up the hoax.

So now I'm a 26 year old man that lies to and manipulates children. I'm not sure I really feel very good about that. There are some very grown-up things that children don't really need to know the whole story about and I am comfortable throwing around a white-lie or vague response now and again, but an out-and-out useless and manipulating lie kind of bothers me. So when they're 15 and we tell them that smoking is bad for them, why should they believe us? Perhaps once they hit 30 we unveil the truth about that too; it actually tastes great and makes you live longer, gotcha! We're so clever.

Would christmas be such a large holiday in the US if we discontinued the lies to children? I believe that parents would still get presents for the children, that stockings would still be filled, and candy canes and carols would overwhelm and sicken everyone for the entire month of December.

On the more joyous side of things, today I spent time with an old friend that had drifted considerably, a mutual drifting really. We were both friends during an awkward and often confusing and unhappy time in our lives. Now he is incredibly happy and fortunate in his life and I am very glad for him. I hadn't realized how much I missed him and his friendship, it meant more than I had remembered, as relatively brief as it was.

Tomorrow after opening gifts and being lazy and eating an early dinner I have to drive back to Corvallis. I'm not especially fond of the traffic I'm likely to encounter. My typical 1.5 hour drive is probably going to turn into at least 3. I'm definitely going to have to stop so Gus can sretch his legs and take a potty break.

Everyone else has finally gone to bed and here I am, the last up, which has been typical for about 15 years. I am still excited and have trouble getting to sleep, even though I'm fully aware that santa will not be visiting our house tonight. That damned childhood programming, I've been brainwashed.