Before I had kids, I was one of THOSE people. ‘Oh, I’m never going to do the elf on the shelf thing, or letters to Santa, or tell my kids they had better behave or Santa won’t come’. And then I had a 2-year-old. ‘Ok, C, it’s time to go home. Yes it really is. I gave you warnings and a timer and now it is time to go home. No? Ok I’m just calling Santa to let him know – oh you’re coming? What a good choice.’ 

This turned around one day when playing outside and I was the one not doing what C wanted me to do. She whipped out her imaginary phone, told me she was just calling Santa, and walked away in a wonderful impression of a harried adult on a phone call, saying ‘hello, Santa? Yes it’s C here. So. I asked mummy if we could play burger shop but she said no, there were too many ants where we were going to play… hm… yes… hm… just thought you’d want to know’. All while I was trying my hardest not to crack a smile or burst out laughing.

Last year, it felt like I ‘called Santa’ most days. In an attempt at balance, I did try to call to tell him when she behaved wonderfully too, but they seem to have been rather outweighed by the less good behavioural updates.

This year, though, has been different. Delightfully different. It was the middle of November when I noticed C was behaving beautifully, all day. Helpful, cooperative, kind, caring. Nothing was said about the whole Christmas approaching thing, but there was a little ding in my brain that night saying, maybe she knows Christmas is starting to approach. And we have had beautiful behaviour from her … well, more than not. So that’s an improvement on last year, anyway. (She hasn’t been very well this last week so behaviour has suffered accordingly, but most of the time has been lovely.) And it has just taken the occasional ‘do I need to call Santa?’ for a sudden change to a much better choice of behaviour to occur. 

There have still been a number of intended calls and messages to Santa, though. ‘I’m just going to watch something while you’re getting E to have a nap if that’s ok mummy?’ Or ‘You don’t mind if I watch something while you have a nap do you mummy?’ Actually, I do mind- ‘NOOOOO’ oh that’s ok, I’ll just call Santa and let him know not to come here at Christmas ‘NOOOO’ well there’s no point is there? You have so many toys but if you don’t want to play with any, why should he bring you any more? ‘Ok ok I’ll play with my toys’. And what do you know, she will happily spend hours and hours putting her babies (small plush toys) to sleep and giving them tea parties and building space ships with magnets and doing interpretive dance to iconic 80s hits and painting pictures of the night and writing love letters to Shaun the Sheep. 

I suppose Santa might be welcome to come after all. That said, last year she wanted a football. A football fits easily in a normal size stocking. This year, she wants a wheelbarrow, so she can wheel her toys around. I’m not sure if Santa can actually fit one of those in his sleigh…