So this morning, it finally happened. The day I’d been fearing for years has come.

While eating her breakfast, the kid turned to me and casually asked, “Is Santa Claus real? Sometimes I think he is, and sometimes I think that parents put the presents under the Christmas tree and eat the cookies we put out for him.”

I almost did an actual spit-take with my coffee.

“That’s what my friend at school said. So is that true? Do you pretend to be Santa and eat his cookies?”

My brain: Think fast, think fast… uhhh, do I *pretend to be Santa*? Do I dress up in a red suit with a white beard and ho ho ho? Do I *actually* eat those cookies? Well, no! Technically, in responding to her question, I’ve never *pretended* to be Santa, and I’ve personally never been the one to take Santa-mimicking bites out of those cookies. So no. SAY NO.

Me, averting my eyes: “No? I mean, NO.”

She pondered this for a moment. “Well I’m going to tell my friend at school that she’s wrong then.”

Oh lawd, THE SHAME.

I immediately shifted gears and hurried her along in her before-school tasks, cleverly diverting her attention from The Santa Question. But, of course, this isn’t going away. And soon I will be unmasked. And I will pay for my jolly, tinsel-draped crimes.

I remember, back when I was about her age, someone at school similarly breaking this same sad news to me, and that evening confronting my father with my suspicions regarding Santa and his minions. At first he danced around the matter, but finally came out an told me in no uncertain terms that yes, aided and abetted by fellow parents, the public school system, and the national media (all in cahoots! Oh, the humanity!), my mother and father had indeed for years perpetrated the merriest of seasonal frauds, with my brother and myself as their victims. I remember being so angry and disappointed that I sulked for days, presaging my stock attitude and behavior as an emo teenager. Thinking back, I feel fairly sure that at that time I wished they’d continued to lie to me. I mean, a good chunk of the joy and wonder gets sucked out of Christmas when you stop believing, right?

Right. Right?

Here I am, in the same situation as the one I’d put my father in more than thirty years ago, and I’m not entirely sure which choice is the better one. At what point, as a parent, do you finally give up the holly-jolly ghost? When is it time to your kid tell the whole, deflating truth, knowing that in doing so you will wholly obliterate a little bit of the magic of their childhood? How do you, in essence, bring yourself to become a SANTA KILLER?

I am in NO WAY ready for this shit. If you people need me, I’ll be over here drowning my sorrows in eggnog and eating my feelings of shame and regret (they taste like spiced Gingerbread this time of year!).