Christmas in GA

 

We went to Atlanta, GA for Christmas this year. Matt's sister lives there with her family and his brother also came with his family. This meant that there were 9 kids 6 and under. There has definitely been a grandkid boom on Matt's side. It's fun to have so many cousins so close in age. The total right now is 3 six year olds, 1 four year old, 2 three year olds, 2 two year olds, 2 under ones, and one on the way. Crazy!! We had a lot of fun on the visit.
It was a supposed to be a 12 hour drive so we thought we would try to make it one day while staying very open to the possibility of an overnighter at a hotel. We made it the whole way through - it took 15 hours. I was pretty impressed that the kids did so well and that the total was only 15 hours. We managed to do the same thing on the way home! Which was nice because we were bringing our dog back with us.
To avoid taking all the presents there and back with us we told the kids that Santa would do their stockings in GA but their tree presents would be here at home when we got back. They were ok with that and even kind of excited about having two Christmases. On a sad note..... we told Jackson that there is not a real magical Santa Claus. I know - he's only 6 - I was sad for him to find out so early. Santa is such a fun and exciting idea as a kid. However, he has been asking a lot of questions about Santa and how he does things. And a girl at school told him that Santa isn't real, it's just your parents putting presents under the tree after you are asleep! So when he came home with that direct question I just couldn't lie to him. I was going to have to get really creative, really quick and I wasn't quite comfortable with it. So we told him that although a magical Santa isn't real the things that Santa represents - namely the spirit of Christmas - are very real and that's what we should focus on. We talked about pretending and mascots and why it's fun and okay. He was very sad for a little while but came out of it quickly when I let him be the Santa's helper and put out the presents before we left so they would under our tree when we came back. He now goes back and forth between comments about Santa bringing presents and us bringing presents. We told him it was perfectly fine to go along with the fun pretend of Santa and that it would help keep the secret for his siblings. He's done a really good job so far. We were a little worried he would announce it to all his cousins in GA because we only told him the day we left. In fact, after prepping him to not tell Maggie .... as soon as we got in the car he goes... "Maggie, Santa REALLY is real. He really is! When we get home our presents will be under the tree from Santa!!" (this was after he had just helped me put all the presents there). He was going a little over the top in trying to convince Maggie - who didn't need ANY convincing. She just said "I know Jax." Then a few minutes later he says "Maggie, when you are six you will get to know a big secret." Oh boy. It's so hard to disappoint your kids on purpose but I know that some of these lessons are so crucial for their development and independence. However, that doesn't mean I have to LIKE it!