Santa and the food offering

Oh, I forgot to share the details of the visit from Santa to our home!! So Gladys is very interested in hearing my personal experiences with Santa. Do I believe in him? Did I leave him cookies? Did he eat them? Etc. I have never lied so much to her in our lives. I do not like it very much.

So after "Santa" aka Federico got back from Fred Myers with the loot; she collapased asleep with cookie crumbs on her lips...and we needed to set up the scene of the crime. aka the Christmas tree and the loot. He went down to the garage to retreive the presents. I hobbled over to scribble "To Gladys from Santa" in some quivering Santa writing. He set up cookies (what she had left of them), a tamale (this is a MEXICAN household he is visiting, after all) and some Mexican hot chocolate. It was past midnight.

I stared at him and the array of food and told him - you need to eat that stuff.

Federico (who is Mexican and doesn't get the finer rules of Santa-culture) stared at me and said, "no you eat it." (in Spanish, ok)

I'm like...honey, it's super late, I'm not hungry and I can't eat all that sugar. You need to eat this or she's going to be on to us and the Big Lie that is Santa.

While my partner normally has an incredible appetite and needs no nudging to eat anything, he wasn't budging on this one. I think partly 'cas he didn't grow up with the Santa protocol thing.

So I, in a great and selfless act of love for Gladys, take the mug of chocolate and drink half of it down. Then we got to bed.

In the morning she is up around 6 a.m. and scouting out the loot. Satisfied that Santa did indeed visit, because he FINALLY left her gifts not bought by the clueless parental units. Then she looks at the untouched platter of food (I'm still amazed that Federico passed up the tamale) and said -- he didn't eat his food?! in a tone of disappointment and questioning.

Then I raise myself up from the bed and say...but look at the mug. She did and gasped - he drank the cocoa!

I told her that Santa was probably stuffed full of food from traveling 2 days around the globe and couldn't manage another bite. We saw him on the NORAD site and kept hearing about how kids were leaving him treats, so my lie nicely blended with the NORAD lie. Isn't nifty how this global conspiracy kinda gels?

I laid back down smiling and relieved.

The things we do for love.