Holiday Lights and the Man in the Red Coat

Last weekend we were bound and determined to do some holiday family fun, so we bundled up and headed to the (free) zoo lights display near us. Although there was no snow on the ground at the time, it was certainly chilly enough to warrant boots and snow pants, in addition to hats and mittens.  This year was even more fun than last because Sam and Anna were able to walk around on their own the entire time.  It was a lot more fun to have conversations beyond "wow" about the lights too.  It wasn't very crowded, so we even stopped to see Santa before leaving. 

(closely cropped because I had a zoom lens on my camera and this Santa was in the tiniest little shed in the middle of the light display.)

If there was a real line, we wouldn't have.  I'm not a huge gotta-see-Santa kind of mama. But Sam asked on our way out and I didn't have a good reason why not.  Last year Santa visited daycare and that was enough for me.  I would have been content to not "see" Santa at all this year.  My reasoning- I know my kids are going to get that these store Santas aren't the real Santa early on.  I mean, it doesn't make sense that Santa is all over the place wearing different clothes and with a different looking beard right before crunch time. I don't want to build it up to have to downplay it later on.  In my opinion, I'd rather tell my kids from the get-go that these store Santas are not the real Santa and are just Santa's helpers because he's simply too busy getting last minute things done to sit all day all across the country/world for the month before Christmas. That's just how I think we're gonna handle that in our family. I've always had a hard time pretending when "Santa" visits my kindergarten classroom each year, because I feel like I'm being dishonest.  To me, saying that the man in the red coat is "Santa" isn't true.  But, I believe in the idea of Santa; the magic of Santa and so I don't feel dishonest when we include the spirit of Santa in our holiday celebrations through stocking filling on Christmas Eve night.  Different families do Santa in different ways, and that's okay.