We had an interesting day
\nyesterday and realized, yet again, that each child Heavenly Father has blessed
\nus with is highly unique, each in his\/her own lovable way.\u00a0 To
\nwit:<\/p>\n
We went to a ward Christmas party last night. Santa made an
\nappearance and each kid got to sit on his lap.<\/p>\n
Allie:<\/strong> At the Christmas party, she sat on Santa’s lap and when Camryn:<\/strong> At the Santa: <\/em>What would you like for The poor elder in our ward had no Seth:<\/strong> The Aftermath<\/strong> From the front seat<\/em>: Silence.\u00a0 This Later that night, we JB: <\/em>“…we thank thee that the we were able to see <\/em>How do you respond to that?\u00a0 After containing my laughter, I JB<\/p>\n — Well, after I wrote this, Susie read it We had an interesting day yesterday and realized, yet again, that each child Heavenly Father has blessed us with is highly unique, each in his\/her own lovable way.\u00a0 To wit: We went to a ward Christmas party last night. Santa made an appearance and each kid got to sit on his lap. Allie: Allie has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/irielife.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/irielife.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/irielife.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irielife.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irielife.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/irielife.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216,"href":"http:\/\/irielife.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions\/216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/irielife.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irielife.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/irielife.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAllie has
\nwanted to send a letter to Santa but has been concerned about how to approach
\nsuch a task because she “doesn’t want to seem selfish” by presenting Santa with
\na list of things that she would like him to give her.\u00a0 She finally made
\npeace with sending a letter by altering the traditional tack taken by most
\nkids.\u00a0 It is a sweet letter, comprised primarily of statements that begin
\nwith “I like….”.\u00a0 She was much more comfortable letting Santa know what
\nkinds of things she likes to do and then allowing Santa to exercise his agency
\non her behalf.<\/p>\n
\nasked what she wanted (so now it was okay to directly state her wish vs. the
\nletter, which even if traditional, was, as Allie intuited, essentially
\nunsolicited) she replied: “A book of historical
\nfiction”.<\/p>\n
\nNo letter to Santa.\u00a0 Surprising given
\nthat when your tether is so long,\u00a0 I would assume that there would be more
\nof an esprit de corps<\/em> with magical beings that would include the
\ntraditional letter writing.\u00a0 As you’ll see, the letter is probably not
\nnecessary.\u00a0 Camryn has no problem making her wishes known.<\/p>\n
\nChristmas party, Camryn sat on Santa’s lap and was in charge from the
\nget-go.<\/p>\n
\nChristmas?
\nCamryn:<\/em> I would like Ballerina Barbie.\u00a0 It costs
\neleven dollars.\u00a0 I have eleven dollars.\u00a0 But I don’t want to spend my
\neleven dollars on Ballerina Barbie.\u00a0 I would like Santa to spend eleven
\ndollars and bring me Ballerina Barbie.<\/p>\n
\nidea how to respond.\u00a0 I think 4 year olds have an insight into economics
\nthat would make Adam Smith proud.\u00a0 If Santa has a comparative advantage in
\ngenerosity which has preserved him as a going concern through the centuries, then
\nwhy not take advantage of this comparative advantage and let him give?\u00a0 It
\nis in Camryn’s best interest to apply her resources, which are so limited,
\nelsewhere.\u00a0 Her comparative advantage is certainly not Santa’s.\u00a0 Maybe
\nfree trade would not be such a frightful thing to Democrats if they let a four
\nyear old run the party.\u00a0 A 4-year old certainly couldn’t do any more damage
\nthan that already being done by McCauliffe and the Nine Angry
\nDwarfs.<\/p>\n
\nHe screamed like someone passing 2 kidney stones
\nsimultaneously and without morphine.\u00a0 He does not like fat jolly hairy men,
\neven if they do pass out chocolate.<\/p>\n
\nAt
\nthis same party, some thoughtless person apparently mentioned within earshot of
\nCamryn that this was not the real <\/em>Santa.\u00a0 Camryn appears to have
\nruminated on this for most of the evening.\u00a0 She seemed kind of pleased to
\nhave this nugget of information that she could wield over the more naive members
\nof her family.\u00a0 On the way home, just as Allie, whose faith is as pure as
\nthe snow is white, was talking excitedly about asking Santa Claus for a book of
\nhistorical fiction, Camryn yells “That was not the real Santa.\u00a0 It was just
\nsome guy dressed up”.<\/p>\n
\nwasn’t in the parenting manual we never got.
\n
\n<\/em>After a pregnant
\npause, Susie did some masterful work reconciling Camryn’s information with
\nAllie’s pure faith.\u00a0 We settled on the fact that Santa cannot be at every
\nward and social function and so he has representatives (elfs) who help him
\nout.\u00a0 We had to be careful — if we led Allie too far down the path of
\nreconciliation, we knew we were powerless before her logic and reasoning
\ncapabilities.\u00a0 Again, kudos to Susie.<\/p>\n
\nknelt for their personal and our family prayers.\u00a0 Allie expressed gratitude
\nthat she got to see Santa.\u00a0 Camryn waited politely until her prayer was
\nfinished and then gravely reprimanded Allie, reminding her that it was not Santa
\nper se. <\/em>I felt the need to get Allie’s back, so when I said family
\nprayer I chided Camryn a bit by thanking Heavenly Father that the kids got
\nto see Santa.\u00a0 Well, it would appear that there are but a few things that
\nCamryn knows with absolute certainty and\u00a0 she is not about to cede any
\nground to anyone on these issues.\u00a0 The prayer went something like
\nthis:<\/p>\n
\nSanta tonight-”
\nCamryn, in an extremely loud whisper, as if not wanting to
\nembarrass me by revealing my stupidity to the other three people 12 inches away
\nfrom us (her arms still folded and head still bowed, of course): <\/em>“NO
\nDAD!\u00a0 Not Santa! It was an elf!”
\nJB:
\n”
\n“<\/em><\/p>\n
\njust chickened out and continued the prayer long enough to get their minds off
\nof it and said Amen.<\/p>\n
\nand informed me that I confused the timeline.\u00a0 Camryn did not instruct
\nSanta himself (or the elf, as the case may be) in basic economics.\u00a0 Rather,
\nthis conversation took place immediately after she got off Santa’s lap and
\nsomeone asked her what she asked Santa for.\u00a0 However, I left the email as
\nis for two reasons: 1) the contrast between our kids is the same regardless of
\nwho Camryn was schooling;\u00a0 2) it reminded us of Lisa, for whom a good story
\n(and she has many) should never be at the mercy of\u00a0 unbridled accuracy.
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"