Bad Santa

Unexpectedly, I've made Santa into the fall guy. You know the person who gets the blame. Ouch! Yeah, I felt that way at first, but now I think it has advantages.

As I've noted before, with the cold weather, with me starting up a new business, I've been re-purposing boxes in our house. They are transformed from useful for shipping into 30 minutes of creative time with no fighting, followed by 30-45 minutes of focused play with the new creation. Really, I have discovered the miracle of boxes for bigger kids and something fun for all of us to do together before bath time.

Typically, the first day is assemble; sticking our new shape together with tape and cutting windows, doors peep holes. The second day is color; paint, markers, crayons, what ever mess I'm up for. The third day is collage, or various stuff stuck on; tissue paper, stickers, cut out shapes of paper, or tissues. Then two days of free play. Then the house, rocket ship, boat, or our current creation - rolling cotton candy cart - disappears in the middle of the night.

A year ago, with only one child, and a three year old at that, the middle of the night disappearance would sometimes go unnoticed for a few days. Then when it came up I'd just say, "oh, that's been gone for ages, we played with it until it fell apart." No major questions, generally no fights.

Well, now with two kids, and the oldest four years old, the middle of the night disappearance leads to questions in the morning. The household is in unison on answers, "Gosh, I don't know where it went?" One day I said out loud "the Boogie Man got it," and I immediately regretted introducing any such terrifying idea. Luckily my eldest didn't quit catch it, so when he said "what?" I just replied I had no idea where it went. Sometimes the little guy in the morning will show me a small piece of paper/box that was left behind from the latest creation and look at me suspiciously.

So here's how the mind of a four year old works. Two days ago he asked me when does Santa come? In the middle of the night. No, when? Oh, in December, not for several more months. nothing further was forthcoming, so I didn't ask what he was thinking about. The next day he had a chat with daddy; "I've asked everyone, you, mommie, the sitter, Mira (our cleaning lady), and Anthony (the doorman/porter he loves) where the boxes are going, and nobody knows." This morning he was showing our newest box creation to the play therapist for the little guy when I heard him explaining, "We have a Bad Santa that comes and takes my boxes in the middle of the night, no one sees him. I'm trying to stay up to catch him, but I haven't. It is not the Good Santa that comes in December."

Okay, this is going to bite me in the butt someday, but for now, I'm letting Bad Santa take the blame.