My husband and I are not creators of magic for our children. In fact, we are pretty well the exact opposite; we’re magic destroyers.
We don’t do the Tooth Fairy. We don’t pretend to be the Easter Bunny. We don’t do Elves on a Shelf. In fact, we even tried to tell our daughter that Santa doesn’t exist, but she chose to disbelieve us, so since then, we’ve made half-hearted attempts to put out cookies and set aside a present from Santa.
My daughter has gone to great lengths to try and preserve childlike innocence, for instance, by insisting on putting teeth under her bed for the tooth fairy. On the first morning of her first lost tooth, she looked up disappointed, with her tooth sitting untouched in a Ziploc bag with her note to the tooth fairy inside.
‘Crap,’ I thought, mentally kicking myself for my forgetfulness as I saw that sad face. I took the bag to the kitchen, removed the tooth and put a note in its place, saying, “Oh look, the tooth IS gone. You must have been seeing things. And look! Here’s a note from the Tooth Fairy.”
“I saw you writing that note at the counter,” she said accusingly. Her father gave her a $20 after she lost a few more and we’re hoping that will be the end of her requests for some mythical fairy that is collecting veritable tons of baby teeth – it’s actually kind of scary and gross, if you think about it.
My daughter and I think the Elf on a Shelf concept is great, but I couldn’t see myself getting one. I would probably forget to move it around every night. Plus, I have to purposely create scenes of mayhem and mess just to clean it up myself later? I think the fear of Mom is a lot more effective for keeping my kids in line than a hypocritical elf with his own behavioural problems.
In my absent-mindedness, I often forgot to do the simple things that other parents seem to pull off so effortlessly. I bought exactly one gift last Christmas, knowing that the grandparents would be going over the top without me adding to the madness. This meant my daughter came home and told me that she and one other girl were the only two students not to get anything for the teacher.
I felt a hot rush of shame in my forgetfulness. But then my daughter said, “My teacher told us that the best gift we could give her was our smiles.”
Well, God bless that teacher! If only we could all be content to receive a smile, a hand-drawn card or simply just words of appreciation.
Everything is an occasion nowadays, and every week there is another reason to buy something or celebrate with elaborate presents or gift bags, whether it’s birthday parties, Halloween, Easter, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, etc. It gets to be exhausting, not to mention a drain on the pocketbook. I know I’m probably more of a Grinch than most, but I don’t care, I’ve decided to opt out. We still have birthday parties for our kids, but there are no loot bags, and we insist on no presents, or if people really want to bring something, they can perhaps give a hand-me-down toy or book, or a food bank donation. Mostly, I want to say to other parents: “Join me - let’s get ourselves off this giant hamster wheel of running around like chickens to create experiences for our kids.”
Even though I can’t be bothered to create an elaborate ruse that a giant bunny or leprechaun visited our house, I want my children to use their own imaginations to create magic. We’ll still come up with stories for new worlds and galaxies. We’ll keep building ladybug houses in our front yard out of 2 x 4s and pinecones. Or we’ll go on a treasure hunt, with folded up clues and a surprise at the end. It won’t be elaborate, but it will be simple, the magic we create when we’re together.
