Christmas through the eyes of a child...

[Guest guest]

I was reading a story to my niece Pixie (2 years and 8 or 9 months old) earlier this evening, it was a story about when Christmas came to the Moomin village. Only this time I decided to do some kind of improvisation based on the illustrations, because she always wants me to read that book, and she never likes it a lot. I think the story is of the kind hard to grasp if you are 2 going on 3, it's probably just the drawings she likes after all. Anyway, I did that, and on the subject of Santa, I asked her if she had ever met a Santa (the Swedish Santa, tomte, isn't really that one guy only, it's more of a particular class of beings, kind of like trolls, only smarter, and usually nicer, hence "a Santa" not "the Santa"). I kind of knew what she was going to answer, because the story she tells most often of all (I don't know how many times she has told it to me the last year...), is the story about when Santa came knocking on the door of the church and had candy for all the children (it was last Christmas, or rather a couple of weeks before, when her toddler class in church had their last meeting for the year).And yes, that's what she told me about. But this time the story had a new ending. Usually it ends with the candy for all. Not so today, after telling her regular story about that incident, she told me:"And then Santa went back home to his place. He said 'Bye, bye! I will come back some other day!'"Then, after a brief paus, she added:"But, he never did."I was trying very hard not to laugh and asked her:"But don't you think he will come back, one day?"She replied:"No, never" and then, as a kind of explanation, added:"You know, this was a REALLY long time ago."Yup. It was. Only a year to us, but nearly half a lifetime to her... But something tells me a Santa will come knocking on a door close to her some day soon...love/Reb