December comes with a lot pressure. If you’re reading this, you already know. It’s the gifts, the family, the parties, the concerts, and importantly the “magic”.

Then, if you’re like me and have elementary aged kids, you add other people’s kids. Tiny truth-tellers with zero filter. Suddenly you might feel like you’re running defense to protect the traditions and stories you’ve been telling your kids for YEARS. While also questioning whether you want to “lie” to your kids.

That’s where I found myself a few weeks ago. So here are two stories that I think I will look back on and laugh. But tenderly laugh, not the maniacal laugh I sometimes do when I remember how bad sleep training was.

We were skiing with our closest friends when four girls approached me at once. Of course they found me when I was alone.

My six-year-old looked at me, lip quivering. “Erin told us Santa isn’t real. It’s just the parents pretending. Is it true?”

Time slowed. I started sweating in my ski gear which may have been the stress of being cornered or the incredible gift of perimenopause. We’ll never know. I desperately looked around for another parent to save me while four sets of eyes tracked my movement.

I felt the full parental panic of oh no, this is happening now?

What I said was simple: “In our family, we believe in the magic of Santa.” And they luckily dispersed. I ran to find my friend and ask what I should do.

She happens to be a child psychologist with great feedback. So my best advice in this moment? Make friends with as many child psychologists as possible. (jk Rach and Laura, you know I love you for you.)

What the moment gave me later was unexpected permission. Once I was alone with my kids, we talked about what we actually believe. About St. Nicholas. About generosity. About the tradition of Christmas and why we celebrate it without being really religious.

And without pause, both of my daughters said, “We believe in Santa.” They were choosing it. And it honestly brought us all closer.

Then there’s the opposite problem.

A close friend told me her daughter has been obsessively writing letters to the Elf on the Shelf campaigning for the Elf to come to their house. Traps. Plans. Diagrams.

Except they don’t celebrate Christmas. And she absolutely does not want nightly Elf logistics.

So now she’s managing a kid deeply invested in Elf mythology… while quietly opting out of the entire operation. But her daughter is like really persistent. See evidence. And please note the letters and the Magnatiles trap.

What I keep coming back to is this:

There isn’t a right way to do any of this.

You can tell your kids Santa isn’t real. You can tell them he is definitely real.
You can go all-in on the Elf. You can quit Elf on the Shelf.
You can skip Christmas. You can skip Christmas with family.
You can celebrate two holidays, or three, or none.

And somehow…everyone is fine. There is no right way to do the holidays. So here’s a personal “eff you” to the IG algorithm who is somehow convincing me there is such a thing as a “Ralph Lauren Christmas” and my lame handmade decor is not enough.

What might be the point for me is loosening my grip a little. Instead of trying to carefully manage what my kids hear or believe, I’m realizing this might be a season to name the obvious: families believe different things. About Santa. About holidays. About what matters.

Maybe the opportunity is to celebrate our traditions with unashamed joy and help our kids make sense of a world where not everyone believes the same things and that is ok.

Stay tuned to see if my friend caves and buys an Elf on a Shelf 😉