Since apparently y’all think it’s almost Christmas (I cannot I cannot Halloween isn’t for two weeks I really cannot) let me share stories about all the times I have accidentally ruined Christmas for young children

1. When I was in kindergarten, my class was going on a field trip that involved walking through Evanston for some reason, can’t remember why. This girl Elaine saw a headless Santa doll on the street and burst into tears. In my attempt to comfort her I said:

“It’s OK, Elaine, Santa’s not real so you don’t have to worry about him being dead.” Can I tell you that my parents got so many phone calls that night? So many. And they were both “whose job was it to tell her to stay mum on the Santa thing?” Oy.

At 10, my ballet class went to see the Nutcracker. 10 seemed a reasonable age to know Santa’s a story, so when someone talked about all the gifts Santa was getting her, I laughed. “Oh, you’re serious? Haven’t your parents told you yet?” No one wanted to sit by me during the show.

When I was at sleepover in 7th grade, I got into / fight with a Christian friend about all the weird things religious parents expect you to believe. When I brought up Santa, she was confused. I explained. I was sent home from the sleepover, and it took her 4 years to forgive me.

Here’s the worst: I tutored a Jewish family when I lived in LA. There was an Elf on the shelf. (FYI, lots of Jews celebrate Christmas, and I don’t judge. Christmas is fun, everyone expresses their Judaism differently, etc. My tutee—he was 12—told me how much it creeped him out.

I agreed (I have hated dolls that were not American Girl ever since I saw Chucky) but told him it was a way of bringing the story to life. I kept talking, he started motioning for me to stop. Turns out his 5 year old sister was in the room, listening. “What do you mean, story?”

That one, I was informed later, was fixed: Her parents explained that I was misinformed about Christmas since I didn’t celebrate it. Thank goodness she believed them and that I kept my job for another year with them. Still. She cried a lot.

I have lots of guilt leftover from that one, and all three of those kids got extra special holiday gifts from me that year.

I will say that I was very careful and thankfully have not ruined Christmas for my own nieces and nephews. And for some of them, Santa’s realness has gone on for a long time. Anyway, please don’t let your kids read this thread and if they don’t, don’t get mad at me.