I'm so stressed out. I don't think I can handle it.

I'm with Robin on Santa. He's a central figure in a great story and I bought into the stories. I believed in all of them. I remember figuring out about the Tooth Fairy when I was about 7. I made a quick leap to, "If the Tooth Fairy isn't real, then the Easter Bunny must not be either." I asked my mom and she confirmed my reasoning. I was okay with that.

Then, the next leap came pretty quickly,too: "If the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny aren't real, then Santa must not be either." That was too awful to contemplate, so I didn't ask my mom about it. I chewed on it for a good week before I finally resigned myself to it and asked her about it. She, again, confirmed that Santa was not a real person and that she and Daddy gave us the presents, but as long as we believed in Santa, he would continue to bring presents.

I still get a stocking from Santa every year.

When we were growing up, we got one or two presents from our parents. We opened all our family gifts on Christmas Eve. Then, on Christmas morning, all the Santa gifts arrived and we opened those. With 5 kids, that was a lot of presents. My mom and dad got stockings from Santa, but no big gifts.

As we've gotten older, Santa still brings us all stockings, but that's it. At some point, my mom stopped doing a stocking for herself so I started doing it for her. Christmas Eve after we go to bed, my mom puts out all the stockings. I listen for her to go to bed and then I sneak out and put out her stocking.

What's going on, Tom? Anything we can do?

What's up, Tom?

{{Tom}}

I think this is why I was a tad confused about the Santa issue early on. Because my Dad did his shopping on the day before Christmas, he put presents under the tree Christmas Eve by default.

Yeah. Sometimes my dad would shop a little early, but mostly it was on Christmas eve or the day before. He took me shopping with him one year and it made me vow in my adult life to never wait until the last minute to shop. And if that wasn't enough, 4 years of working retail hammered it home.

Our stockings are usually the fabled orange, nuts, candy, and small toys. Sometimes an accessory for a gift we'd get later on or cassettes or gift cards.

Oh, forgot about the accessories. Sometimes we'd get those, too. Which was sometimes confusing when we opened the stockings first. Though getting batteries in my stocking when I was young was always a cause for excitement since it meant I was getting something cool and noisy.

I remember one year, we ended up having my dad's side of the family over at our place instead of my grandparents' for some reason and I happened to get several battery-powered vehicles that year. Which my dad and my uncles promptly put together, took down the basement and started racing against each other and playing king of the hill with.

I started to go shopping this morning, but when I came out of the subway, I got a couple of voicemail messages from work.

So now I'm at work, my niece's birthday is tomorrow, and I still have to get her a present. I also still have to get everyone else in my family Christmas presents. I want to see my niece, but I'm less than thrilled about seeing the rest of my family, especially this weekend and next, and I really don't want to be at work.

That about covers it. Oh, and I have a headache.

Tom, what's going on?

...

A neighbor came up to my father, all ranty, saying I'd told his daughter there was no Santa. I hadn't. My best friend did it, but that's beside the point. Anyhow, this father was steaming, and just let off a whole rant about me telling his kid Santa didn't exist.

My dad just dead-panned, "I hate to tell you, but he doesn't."

I grew up with "There is no Santa, but it's not nice to tell Christian kids that." I only broke that rule once -- a boy asked me what Santa was bringing me, and I said "nothing," and he told me that I must have been really bad if Santa wasn't bringing me anything, and started listing bad things I might have done. So I told him there was no Santa, and convinced him. He cried. (This was second grade.)

Serves him right, the little nasty.

My mother said that one of the things that our fourth-grade teacher said, in a discussion about how my class was the worst class that any teacher could remember, was that, as an example of how immature we, collectively, were, she'd never seen so many fourth-graders who still believed in Santa.

I'm hearing about all these fifth and sixth graders (this year, I mean) who still believe in Santa. I think I'm the only adult I know, who is convinced they're faking, to make sure the gravy train doesn't dry up.

Ack, Tom. Stress-o-rama.

Oh, Tom, sorry for the Xpost. Can you get something for your niece on the way to see her, tomorrow, and worry about the rest of the family in the coming week?

I'm not hugely into getting presents, and I know it's different for everyone, but I'd much rather have my family member not feeling all stressed out.