After the kids spent Christmas with me, the rest of the holidays went by. The kids went back to school and Ella celebrated her fifth birthday. I thought that everything went back to normal until I came to Charlie's school with Neil and Laura for Career Day. When Charlie's teacher, Miss Daniels, called on him to come up to the front, he came up to Neil first.
"Can I ask Dad to go first?" I heard Charlie ask Neil.
"Well, if that's how you feel, Charlie," Neil replied.
"That's how he feels, Neil," I quipped. "Nice sweater, buddy." I joined Charlie at the front of the room with the Do-It-All-For-You Dolly in my hand.
"This is my dad, Scott Calvin," Charlie introduced. "He's got a really neat job."
"Thank you, Charlie," I began.
"My dad is Santa Claus." All of Charlie's classmates began to laugh. I could tell that Laura and Neil were not smiling.
"Oh, boy!" I couldn't believe what I heard. I thought he would have been over the Santa Claus thing by now, which I think is still a dream, by the way. "I think what he means is, I'm like Santa Claus," I explained. "We're both giving. We're both jolly. And we both work very hard one day a year."
"That's not what I mean, Dad," Charlie said before turning back to his classmates. "Look, on Christmas Eve, my dad pushed Santa off the roof. Santa disappeared and my dad took his place." I tried to get Charlie to stop talking about it, but to no avail. He went back over to his desk to get something out of his backpack.
"My sister and I went with him to deliver all the presents," Charlie continued as he got the snowglobe out of his backpack. "Then, the reindeer flew us to the North Pole where the head elf, Bernard, gave me this." He then added that Ella got a snowglobe from Bernard.
I tried to explain to Charlie's class once more. "Look, I work for a toy company. I deliver toys all over the country. So, in a way, I'm like Santa Claus." A little girl raised her hand and I called on her. I think her name was Veronica.
"Do you make the toys?" she asked.
"No, stupid!" said a boy named Bobby. "The elves do!"
"Bobby," said Miss Daniels. "We don't say "stupid" and we don't say "elves." They're little people."
"No, but they really are elves," Charlie countered.
"Whatever, honey."
"Which one's your favorite reindeer?" Bobby asked.
"Comet," Charlie answered.
"Uh, I, I, I don't have a favorite," I stammered as I wiped the sweat off my face.
"So, let me get this straight, Santa," Bobby continued. "You mean, when I grow up, if I wanna be Santa Claus, all I gotta do is push you off a roof?"
That afternoon, Laura, Neil, and I met with Principal Compton about what has happened. It was not a great conversation. After telling my ex-wife, Neil, and the principal what happened on Christmas Eve, the solution the principal thought of was to have me sit down with Charlie and Ella and tell them I am not Santa. There was no way I could do this for Ella's sake because she is still too young to be told this. Since this was my weekend with the kids, I thought I would take them to the aquarium. When we went to see the polar bears, Charlie once again brought up the North Pole.
"They're like the bears at the North Pole, Dad," Charlie said.
"Charlie, I already told ya," I replied. "We did not go to the North Pole. That was a dream."
"You're in denial, Daddy," Ella said.
"Denial? You don't know what that means."
"Well, you are, Daddy. We know what happened."
"How do you know that? How? You don't have any proof."
"Proof?" Charlie and Ella questioned together. They reached into their backpacks and took out their snowglobes.
"Why can't we all think of it as just a dream and forget about it?" I asked.
"But, what about these, Dad?" Charlie asked. "Remember all the neat stuff inside?"
"Kids, those are toys. We used to make things like this at work, but no one bought 'em." I handed the snowglobes back to the kids and they put them away. "I don't wanna talk about this any more."
"We know who you are, Daddy," Ella said as we walked outside and back to my car. "You'll figure it out soon enough."
"There are a lot of kids that believe in you," Charlie added. "You can't let them down."
"Kids, you're wrong."
Ella looked back and then tapped Charlie on the shoulder. They both looked back and began to chuckle.
"What's so funny?" I asked.
"Nothing," the kids answered.
