Happy holidays, everyone! đ I was asked by my friend
(aka @meg__memes, her previous interview here) to share a holiday tradition, funny story, or other nice little blurb about the holidays for her blog. Check out the rest of her responses here, and below is the extended story of what I shared with her!TW: Santa Denial
I donât have many holiday traditions, as my family loves to decide last minute who is hosting and what weâre eating etc. etc. around the holidays and it changes every year. But, I can tell you a silly Christmas anecdote about my final grasp for believing in Santa Claus.
I forget how old I was, but pretty young. Young enough to still acceptably believe in Santa and young enough to receiveâŚan American Girl Doll for Christmas.
I begged my parents to get me an American Girl Doll. For some reason, I already had Coconut (this one to be exact). I remember my mom ordering Coconut (who upon Googling I learned has changed genders over the years for marketing purposes lol?) for me in the catalogs they would mail to our house.
Christmas morning came and I finally got my American Girl Doll! For some reason, I insisted on getting one with red hair and blue eyes???? So fucking weird. Iâm sure we could psychoanalyze this. I opened the box, so excited, and then I saw a gift receipt. It was purchased at the American Girl Doll Store in Chicago.
As a kid (and as I still do now) I over-intellectualized everything. I saw the gift receipt not as denial of Santa, but instead justified it as âwell yeah, Iâm not a baby anymore, I know Santa doesnât make every toy, he just delivers them.â Hilarious logic.
But then on the receipt, I read that it was purchased at the Chicago location of the American Girl store. I also saw at the top of the receipt that there was a New York location. I then asked my parents: âIs the North Pole closer to Chicago other than New York?â
My parents were bewildered by what I said and they asked me âWhy do you ask...â I showed them the gift receipt and explained my logic.
My dad responded with âOh, well Santa actually called me and told me he was super busy this year, so he told your aunt to buy it at the store and he picked it up from her house on his way here.â My aunt lived in the city at the time, my family in the suburbs.
I didnât want to even THINK the words âSanta isnât real,â so I quickly erased any thought of it from my brain and complied with my parentsâ explanation. Though I think I even remember asking my mom to MapQuest or Google Maps both the routes from Chicago to the North Pole and New York to the North Pole, to make sure that the New York location wasnât closer.
To this day, the red-haired, blue-eyed American Girl Doll freaks me out and it lays in a pile of stuff in a closed plastic bin, and my parents love to tell the story of how Santa was almost ruined for meâeven though I kind of already knew (and they kind of knew that I already knew).
Together, we decided to keep the â¨Christmas Miracle of Santaâ˘ď¸â¨ alive for me.
How long did you believe in Santa? Do you also have a funny reveal story? Comment below or respond to this email đ đź
xoxo,
Elise
i never really cared for coconut
twenty three tabs in my inbox... diva UP!