Mrs Claus Never Looked So Good

But, I'll have to wait until Mr Claus sends me a picture because I forgot my camera.

The entire operations department had a holiday brunch-ish party today. I say brunch-ish because Boss³ called it brunch, but it was really bagels and donuts. There is usually a little pep-talk, and then little presents from a client, and then a drawing for some rather nice presents, and reserved parking spaces for a month. Who pulls the names and passes out the presents? Santa and his elves, of course. And this year was special because he let the Mrs out of the house. That was me!

After our little party, the Claus' and their three elves wandered the building, passing out leftover presents to the important people (like the CEO, COO, CFO, etc). Santa brought his camera and took a lot of pictures. I'll probably have them on Monday for you.

Luckily, work has not been burying me for the past couple days, so the long morning break didn't set me back any.

I used to think I wouldn't teach my children, if I were to have children, about Santa Claus so they wouldn't be let down when they realized it's not true. I would watch the Christmas Eve news reports scornfully as the location of Santa's sleigh was tracked by NORAD. A few years ago, I changed my mind about this position. Finding out Santa was not real wasn't a huge let down for me. I think it was just knowledge that I realized I had.

Did you hear someone a couple weeks ago saying Santa is a bad role model because he's overweight? I forget who was talking about it, but I remember the local news radio station opening up their comment line to see what we thought about it. Most people said we should leave Santa and his bowl-full-of-jelly image alone. I agree completely. The article they were talking about was all over how he's setting a bad example, kids look up to him and he needs to slim up to be a good role model.

First off, Santa isn't a role model in the sense that athletes who operate illegal and cruel dog fighting rings are. Secondly, he only comes around once a year, therefore is only on our minds once a year. And the real reason why they should lay off is because he isn't the kind of figure that kids strive to be like or hope to become one day. His main lesson is a very important one, and the reason why I've changed my stance about teaching children about jolly old St. Nick.

Like the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny, Santa teaches us to believe in magic. That's the most important lesson he could possibly give us.