Santa and St. Nicholas

Disclaimer: I had a very happy childhood and I loved Christmas growing up. My happiness has not been diminished in any way by what I'm about to say. 

So growing up my parents didn't teach us about Santa Claus. We didn't leave out cookies, we didn't write letters, nothing. What was their reasoning you ask?

They thought that if we found out they were lying about Santa we would think they were lying about Jesus.

It makes sense if you think about it. However, I have yet to meet a kid whose testimony was shaken by the realization that their parents lied to them for eight or so years about the existence of a man in a red suit.

I knew who Santa was, but for as long as I can remember there was always an older kid around to cast doubt on any budding belief I had in the guy. So when a female relative who shall remain nameless pulled me aside and offered to tell me the truth about Santa and where babies came from, I found the latter a little harder to believe. (A couple years later my mom gave me round 2 of "the talk" and I kept quiet to see if the stories matched up. They did.)

I did, however, have a magical period where I believed in St. Nicholas. The St. Nicholas celebration is a German tradition where children leave their shoes outside on the night of December 5 and St. Nicholas fills them with candy and toys.

This year St. Nicholas came to me, Alex and the brothers. 

Ryan thought that if he put out bigger shoes then St. Nicholas would fill them to the top with candy. But St. Nicholas saw straight through that crap.