Even Santa Claus has sarcastic side nowadays

Santa Claus has a sarcastic side, at least in our house he does.


Prior to coming Christmas Eve, my 6-year-old son, Braden, wanted to set something out for him to eat. “Santa will like some candy,” said the boy, setting out four Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for the big man.

“I’m not sure Santa would want that,” I told Braden. “He gets sweets everywhere he goes tonight. Why not set out some chips and salsa? I bet he would really like that.”

“Nope. He wants candy.”

“I think you’re wrong on that one.”

I lost the argument, and we left out some candy for him.

The next morning Braden woke my wife and me up fairly late, at 7 a.m. much to our delight, and was excited not just for the gifts under the tree but also for the note Santa left him.

“What does it say?” my wife asked, encouraging him to use his new reading skills.

Braden read the note: “Dear Braden. Thanks for the candy, but some chips and salsa would have been nice. Santa.” He struggled with the words “chips” and “salsa,” but otherwise read it perfectly.

“I guess you were right Dad. Santa would have liked some chips and salsa better.”

Validation. It’s always nice, but I think I had the advantage on that one so I’m not sure it counts. Besides, I think Santa helped himself to some chips and salsa right before saying “Ho, ho, ho,” which Braden insists he heard that night. He might be right on that one.

When I was a kid, we always left out cookies and milk for Santa, as well as carrots for his reindeer. Santa was always nice in return, leaving appreciative notes.

Santa has found his sarcastic side now, the victim of several decades of sarcasm that bombarded my entire generation. Kids in films always had to be more sarcastic than the kid next to him or her, and the laugh tracks of comedy series on television were set to go off with every sarcastic comment by characters like Jerry Seinfeld and Roseanne.

It’s such a part of our lexicon now that even Braden knows its definition, much to his great aunt Barb’s amazement Christmas Eve when he told her someone’s comment was sarcastic. As her mouth dropped from his correct usage of the term, my wife told her he also can define “lines of symmetry.”

“I couldn’t tell you what they were,” she said. “What are they Braden?”

He pointed to her television stand, at a line created by a pair of cupboard shelves, and said it’s the line of symmetry because it divides the rectangle in half and creates two rectangles that are exactly the same.

I’m glad he defined it for her, because even though I was on my school’s geometry team in high school, I couldn’t remember it.

“Pretty simple,” Braden told her, dripping his statement with a bit of sarcasm.

I can’t wait until I see what types of notes Santa leaves his children.
****
Originally published in The Portage County Gazette on Friday, Dec. 30, 2011.

Youngster's Santa letter is work of genius

The other day my 4-year-old son, Braden, was watching some Christmas television show in which one of the characters wrote a letter to Santa Claus. Not previously knowing that was something he could do, Braden asked me for some paper and a pencil, as he too wanted to write a letter to the big guy in the North Pole.
I’m not going to be one of those parents who brags his 4-year-old can already read and write, because I’d be lying. My kid knows his letters most of the time, he can spell his name some of the time, and once in awhile he can even write it, but that’s it.
I’d love it if he could read and write, but he’s already light years ahead of where I was at his age. Not only didn’t I know the alphabet at 4, but I didn’t know it when I was 5 and in kindergarten, a grade I claim I flunked but my mother correctly says I was held back in to grasp the basics.
Intrigued by Braden’s sudden decision to use writing skills I didn’t know he had, I watched in amusement as he put his pencil to paper and wrote to Santa. When he was done, his letter was literally filled with a mess of letters. I asked him what those letters said.
“It says ‘I want Optimus Prime,’” he replied to complete predictability, as the Transformer toy is something he’s wanted for a long time.
“What else does it say?” I asked.
“It also says, ‘I want everything that I want,’” he said.
It was brilliant, I thought. What more could he have written to make his point any clearer? Absolutely nothing.
“I want everything that I want.” He knows what he wants, and he knows Santa knows what he wants. Why bother listing everything if Santa has the ability to read kids’ minds, as he correctly believes?
His short, simple statement also made me jealous. As a person who writes for a living, I’ve learned many times the best writers are the ones that can say the most with as few words as possible. It’s a goal I strive for, but often believe I sometimes miss. Thankfully I’ve got an editor and multiple proofers who trim my work whenever they deem it should be done.
Jealous is probably an understatement, because I’m not sure I’ve ever written anything that says as much as he did with those six words. Granted, he didn’t technically write those words, but his translation of his jumbled letters is enough for me.
My long windedness might stem from those years in elementary school after flunking kindergarten in which I went from being the stupid kid in class to the teacher’s pet. When school and learning clicked for me, sometime in first grade, learning became something I greatly enjoyed.
This enjoyment inspired me to go above and beyond the scope of given assignments. When a teacher assigned us to write a story using all of our spelling words, I wrote 20-page novellas. These Magnum opuses were always humorous, as in addition to being the teacher’s pet I was usually the class clown, and many were epic, as I would continue them the next week with the next set of spelling words.
I don’t have any copies of these stories for specific examples, but I’m pretty sure I was long winded. The poor teachers, already overworked and underpaid, probably hated sludging through my dribble. I probably got top marks, not for quality material, but just for my effort. What teacher wouldn’t give a kid who spent three hours on a story the best grade possible, even if said story could be condensed to two paragraphs in a more readable form?
It wasn’t until Mrs. Voeltner taught me in my high school journalism class that less is usually better.
That’s a lesson I still struggle with, but one Braden has apparently learned at a very young age. I don’t want to brag, but maybe he is a genius.