The Truth About Santa Claus

Due to a scheduling conflict, our English ward was sent up to the third floor chapel today, where we had watched general conference a few weeks ago. The first speaker was a new missionary to the ward. He started off as all missionaries do, "I'm excited to be here, la dee da dee dum..." I must admit that I was trying to keep Michael occupied rather than listening closely until he started talking about Santa Claus. I'm always try to get Michael to listen to the speakers if there's anything that he can relate to, so I quickly told Michael, "Listen. He's talking about Santa Claus." Michael's head popped up and he said, "Santa Claus?" Michael had really just caught onto the idea of Santa Claus this year, but he definitely still remembered.

The missionary had just been talking about how Santa Claus is so good and everybody loves Santa and then he dropped the bombshell - "But Santa Claus is not real." I had been looking at Michael, but I immediately whipped my head around and started glaring at this oblivious nineteen year old, mentally ordering him to backtrack or say something like, "He's not real to some people who don't believe in him." But, nope. I'm frantically thinking of what to say to Michael as the missionary repeats at least three times how Santa isn't real, but the gospel is real or something along those lines. I'm also kicking myself for telling Michael to listen. It seemed like most of the other kids were completely ignoring the speaker as usual and didn't catch on, whereas Michael kept on saying, "He said Santa isn't real." I caught pitying smiles from all around as I tried to convincingly tell Michael, "Yes, he's real. That man made a mistake." And Michael would reply, "No, he said he's not real." We went back and forth a few times until I gave up and let the subject drop, hoping that by the end of church, he will have forgotten all about it, and that by December, he will not have any memory of some guy in a suit telling lies at the pulpit.

The ever wise bishopric set the record straight, and announced before the intermediate hymn that Santa was definitely real, and he knew how to get to Taipei and into houses that didn't have chimneys (as no one has fireplaces here). Finally! The truth! Unfortunately, Michael didn't hear a word of it, and I had already learned my lesson about asking Michael to listen. And I don't want to hear another word about Santa until December.

I still didn't get a belated Mother's Day Toblerone. And Michael ran off and got lost leaving me to wander the third floor calling out to him. On the plus side, after I found him, we found the umbrella that he had lost a few weeks ago, so he was happy.

As we were walking to our bus stop, Michael pointed to the huge Taipei Post administration building and said, "When I grow up, I'm going to live here all by myself." He's only three and he's already thinking about moving out!