To Santa or not to Santa, that is the question
If you are under the age of 8 and somehow stumbled upon this page, turn back. You won’t be able to unsee this and I promise you, you will FOR SURE regret reading this if this is the way that this happens for you.
Go watch some episodes of Bluey on Netflix instead.
You gone?
Okay now that it’s just us adults who have no idea who Bluey is…
Growing up in a home that was a hybrid of fourth generation and shin-nisei, holiday traditions were a bit of a shitshow for us. I know my mom tried her best doing it all alone, but I don’t remember the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, or Santa being a huge part of my childhood. I think I got a few dollars here and there in my Tooth Pillow that I eventually lost, and my mom still gave us second gifts from “Santa” into our young adulthood. I definitely don’t have a hilarious story of when I found out Santa wasn’t real from my classmate and then crying myself to sleep over it.
My husband, on the other hand, comes from a family of Sanseis who grew up kind of like me and wanted to do better for their own children. His parents went pretty all out on the whimsy and magic of the holidays, so much so that when he found out that the last of his magical friends were in fact, not real (for him the Easter Bunny was his last hope even after Santa ended up being a fake fat man) he exclaimed “Is ANYTHING real??” causing a bit of an existentialist crisis—and I only half-joke about that. Which puts us at an interesting place for whether or not we Santa with our kids.
While this decision stresses me out, a simple google search on this topic gave me articles from the Times and the Atlantic and Washington Post. I certainly wasn’t the only one ruminating and worrying about this—and even more surprisingly, a lot of families actually opt out of the tradition all together these days.
