If you’re anything like me, it’s easy to slip into habits when it comes to holidays. Warm-weather holidays mean cookouts with classic rock in the background; cold-weather holidays mean big meals indoors, music optional. Now I’m all for celebrating with food and family, but at a certain point the holidays can seem interchangeable, so long as you don’t confuse the summer ones with the winter ones.

I wanted a different Fourth of July this year, both for me and my immediate family. Instead of visiting my brother’s house for a cookout, why not connect directly to the meaning of Independence Day? It would be educational and inspirational! With my 18-year-old son away for the week and my wife in agreement, I only needed to get my 13-year-old on board. I’ll get to the bottom line: he insisted he wasn’t going. And he wasn’t moved when I said he would always remember the walking tour of “Revolutionary New York,” but wouldn’t remember just hanging out at home (nice try, right?)

Faced with an immovable child, what should we do? We declared our own independence and went on the tour without him. Run by Big Onion Tours, the walk was fun and I learned things about Revolutionary New York that I didn’t know.

(Here’s one piece of Revolutionary lure, followed by book tip for more on Revolutionary New York: Inside City Hall Park, visible from Broadway, stands a tall flagpole that’s wrapped in a series of metal bands. What is it? A Liberty Pole, like the one that the anti-British Sons of Liberty installed on the site as a sign of defiance. After British troops repeatedly chopped the pole down, the Sons of Liberty wrapped a new one in iron for protection. For a deeper look at the Revolution in New York, check out The Battle for New York by Barnet Schecter. You may be amazed at New York’s role during the Revolution.

My son survived July Fourth. He watched a movie on DVD for the several hours we were gone. He wasn’t angry when we returned and later we told him about the tour. After dinner we went up on the roof and watched fireworks. What do you think, were we bad parents?

What is your family’s unique way of celebrating the Fourth of July? For us, it’s a special day in more ways than one. Three years ago tomorrow, we brought Pumpkin home from the hospital — nine weeks to the day after she was born. So for us, it’s not just our nation’s independence we’re celebrating, but Pumpkin’s independence from the NICU. That said, I hope to start teaching her about the larger meaning of the holiday and why we are grateful to be living here in America. If you’re looking for ideas for family activities, here is a link to the Wikipedia entry on Independence Day. Here is the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives. Every year, National Public Radio offers an audio reading of the declaration. Here is a link to last year’s recital.

Let’s call this one of my lazy blogs. But there are some good facts here, so I don’t feel that badly about it.

It’s basically a collection of tidbits sent out by the U.S. Census Bureau to mark Father’s Day this coming Sunday. Like many holidays, this one kind of snuck up on me because of a hectic work schedule of late. As it turns, out this coming weekend is my ex’s weekend with my son. But, as per our agreement, I’ll get the day with him and if the weather is anything like it is here right now, we’ll be spending a good chunk of it at some body of water or other. Unfortunately, my girlfriend’s little boy gets the day with his dad, so we won’t have both the boys to splash around with.

To be honest, what I’ve always looked forward to the most is whatever arts-and-crafts project my son puts together for me at school. As I sit here now, I’m looking at a pencil holder made from painted tongue depressors that he gave me several years ago. I treasure it almost as much as the mood ring he gave me last year.

Anyway, here’s the Census stuff. Thanks for reading and enjoy:

The idea of Father’s Day was conceived by Sonora Dodd of Spokane, Wash., hile she listened to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. Dodd wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart, a widowed Civil War veteran who was left to raise his six children on a farm. A day in June was chosen for the first Father’s Day celebration — June 19, 1910, proclaimed by Spokane’s mayor because it was the month of Smart’s birth. The first presidential proclamation honoring fathers was issued in 1966 when President Lyndon Johnson designated the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. Father’s Day as been celebrated annually since 1972 when President Richard Nixon signed the public law that made it permanent.

64.3 million
Estimated number of fathers across the nation. Source: unpublished data from the Survey of Income and Program articipation

A good place to buy dad a tie or a shirt might be one of 8,685 men’s clothing stores around the country (as of 2005). Source: County Business Patterns

Other items high on the list of Father’s Day gifts are tools such as hammers, wrenches and screwdrivers. You could buy some of these items for dad at one of the nation’s 14,257 hardware stores or 5,925 home centers (as of 2005). Source: County Business Patterns

23,195
Number of sporting goods stores in 2005. These stores are good places to purchase traditional gifts for dad, such as fishing rods and golf clubs. Source: County Business Patterns

More than 74 million Americans participated in a barbecue in the last year — it’s probably safe to assume many of these barbecues took place on Father’s Day. Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2008

159,000
Estimated number of stay-at-home dads in 2006. These married fathers with children younger than 15 have remained out of the labor force for at least one year primarily so they can care for the family while their wives work outside the home. These fathers cared for 283,000 children. Among these stay-at-home dads, 60 percent had two or more children, and 40 percent had an annual family income of $50,000 or more. Source: America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2006

25%
Among the nation’s 11.3 million preschoolers whose mothers are employed, the percentage who are regularly cared for by their father during their mother’s working hours. This amounted to 2.9 million children. Source: Who’s Minding the Kids? Child Care Arrangements: Spring 2005

26.5 million
Number of fathers who are part of married-couple families with children younger than 18 in 2006.

– 22 percent are raising three or more children younger than 18 (among married-couple family households only). – 2 percent live in someone else’s home.

Source: America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2006

2.5 million
Number of single fathers in 2006, up from 400,000 in 1970. Currently, among single parents living with their children, 19 percent are men.

– 8 percent are raising three or more children younger than 18. – About 42 percent are divorced, 38 percent are never married, 16 percent are separated and 4 percent are widowed. (There is no significant difference between the percentages of single fathers who are divorced or never married.) – 16 percent live in someone else’s home. – 27 percent have an annual family income of $50,000 or more.

Source: America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2006

85%
Among the 30.2 million fathers living with children younger than 18, the percentage who lived with their biological children only. In addition, 11 percent lived with stepchildren, 4 percent with adopted children and fewer than 1 percent with foster children. Source: Living Arrangements of Children: 2004

31%
Percentage of custodial fathers who were due child support. They numbered 678,000. Source: Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support

$2.4 billion
Amount of child support received by custodial fathers in 2005; they were due $3.3 billion. In contrast, custodial mothers received $22.4 billion of the $34.7 billion in support that was due. Source: Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support

43%
Percentage of custodial fathers who received all child support that was due, not significantly different from the corresponding percentage for custodial mothers. Fathers received an average of $6,210 in child support in 2005, compared with $5,981 for mothers. (These figures are not statistically different from one another.) Source: Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support

36%
Percentage of custodial fathers with child support agreements or awards. Source: Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support

72%
Percentage of custodial fathers receiving noncash support, such as gifts or coverage of expenses, on behalf of their children. The corresponding proportion for mothers was 59 percent. Source: Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support

30%
Percentage of children younger than 6 living with married parents in 2003 who ate breakfast with their fathers every day. The corresponding number for children living with unmarried fathers was 41 percent. Source: A Child’s Day

64%
Percentage of children younger than 6 living with married parents who ate dinner with their fathers every day. The corresponding number for children living with unmarried fathers was 66 percent. Source: A Child’s Day

63%
Percentage of children younger than 6 living with married parents who were praised three or more times a day by their fathers. The corresponding number for children living with unmarried fathers was 57 percent. Source: A Child’s Day

Is it that time of year already?

Seems to me that every year my ex and I do this vacation juggling act with our son: Who gets him which week, who has to compromise their plans, who put in for a particular week first, and so on and so on. Frankly, it’s when our amicable custodial agreement is most tested.

This year, my girlfriend and I have plans to head south to spend a week at a beach resort with our two boys, although our departure is delayed one day because of a scheduling conflict with my ex. My ex, meanwhile, has to interrupt her week away to drive back and drop my son off for my scheduled weekend with him. Well, it happens. We’ll work around it. The real tricky part comes with the bartering for weekends. It’s inevitable that we have to swap our weekends for this or that three-day getaway: I want to fly out and see my brother and my nephews on her weekend; she wants to extend her vacation by keeping our son over my weekend.

Let the negotiations begin!

We always end up working it out, and have somehow managed to keep our post-divorce friendship intact. But it leaves me wondering if there isn’t a system we could put into play, or some process that would make this whole juggling act function more smoothly in years to come, particularly as it’s not just the two of us that are affected by our scheduling: There’s her husband and his son, and my girlfriend and her little boy — our blended family. Everyone is potentially inconvenienced if it tips the wrong way.

So, does anyone have a fool-proof formula for this stuff?

 Mother’s Day can be a tad hectic for me. That’s simply because of all the mother’s around me, from my girlfriend, to my mom, to my ex, to my girlfriend’s mom, who will be visiting this weekend. I think I can skate with a phone call on a couple, but will have to put up on at least two of them. Heck, we may even want to get flowers for our neighbor, who we have become friendly with.

But I consider myself lucky, with all those moms around me. And it made my thoughts wander a bit to the single dads out there. The assumption might be that divorced dads with shared custody give up the weekend to their ex’s, much as you would expect a divorced mom to do the same on Father’s Day. Then I figure there are truly single dads raising the kids solo. What do they do?

No surprisingly, I wasn’t the only one tossing this around in my head. I came across a blog post on, of all places, the AdoptionBlogs.com website that addressed this very thing. In this case, the writer simply put the question to several dads and came up with this entry. It hardly addresses all scenarios, but it highlights my thinking that, based on their individual circumstances, Mother’s Day can be a radically different experience for the dads out there.

Any stories of your own?

This is a belated post about Easter. We’ve had a busy week in our family. My mom went into the hospital in New York on Wednesday for surgery and I’ve been down there every day. But I wanted to put my thoughts out here on Easter and our traditions because this year they were tested — and stood up to the test.

We learned last month that my mom would be having surgery in March, but we didn’t know which date. This immediately put our usual plans for Easter in flux. For the past three years, my mom and my husband’s two sisters and parents have gathered at our house. The first time was the year I was pregnant with the Pumpkin. It was a wonderful day. We were so joyful with anticipation of the baby. And I was so excited to share my family’s traditional Polish Easter recipes with my husband’s Italian family. (Even if I had to keep going outside to get fresh air to clear up my morning sickness.) The next year was even more special. Pumpkin, who was born three months early, had been forbidden from contact with other kids until she was 15 pounds — a milestone she had just reached around Easter. Easter 2006 was the first time she met her cousins. Last year was special, too, as Pumpkin participated in an egg hunt for the first time, and enjoyed chocolate Easter bunny for the first time.

So, when the complication of the surgery came up this year, I was initially reluctant to cancel Easter. We hoped my mom would be a few weeks past her surgery and ready to celebrate. Then, a series of events put those hopes on hold. Her surgery ended up moving to the end of March. My mother-in-law got sick with a condition she’s still recovering from. And my sister-in-law’s family had some troubles of their own. No one was up for a big Easter celebration outside their own homes. My first reaction to the breakup of our usually big party of nine adults and six kids was to wonder whether it would be worth the trouble of cooking for the smaller gathering of my husband, my mom, myself and Pumpkin. We contemplated going out to a brunch, but in the end, I decided to make the feast.

Last Saturday, the Pumpkin and I went down to the Yonkers Miasarnia on Lockwood Avenue and bought a WHOLE Polish ham and a kielbasa as well as a poppy-seed coffee cake and a babka. That night, we dyed Easter eggs and I baked the cake part of our annual bunny cake. (My mom made the boiled frosting the next morning and applied the coconut and licorice whiskers and jellybean eyes.)  I got up early on Easter and got the ham in the oven and peeled and chopped potatoes. I prepped the asparagus for roasting in the oven while the ham rested. Shortly before the ham was ready, I started boiling the sauage for the traditional Barscz, or white Polish Easter soup. It’s a cream soup made with the broth of Polish sausage that I’ve eaten nearly every Easter of my life since childhood. Making it for Pumpkin got me thinking about how tradition-bound we become when we become parents. It’s not Easter for me without Barscz — and it makes me happy to imagine that one day Pumpkin will feel the same way.

Julie’s Barscz

1 loop of traditional kielbasa
3 tablespoons flour
2 eggs, room temperature
1 pint heavy cream
1/4 cup cider vinegar
horseradish to taste
hard-boiled eggs
roasted Polish ham slices

Slice kielbasa into 2-inch pieces and boil until skin starts to pop. Remove from water. Add flour to cold water in a separate cup until it’s smooth. Add to the boiling sausage broth and cook for a few minutes. In a Pyrex cup or similar vessel, place eggs and beat. Start adding broth a few teaspoons at a time, beating all the while in order to “temper” the eggs. The idea is to get them to a warm temperature without cooking or curdling them. Add eggs to broth. Add heavy cream. Bring near a boil, but don’t boil. Add vinegar to taste. Add salt and white pepper to taste. At this point, we were done. We would then slice up the eggs and sausage and ham in a bowl, pour on the Barscz and throw in a dollop of horseradish. Yum! You might, however, opt to add the horseradish to the pot of soup for a less strong flavor. Either way, this is what the final result looks like:

And, to put the passage of time in perspective for us parents, here is Pumpkin’s first Easter and her most recent:

Happy Valentine’s Day! It’s a big holiday for a lot of moms and dads out there — and not because they are celebrating a romantic occasion. In an earlier post on Valentine’s Day, I mentioned that I was writing a story for today’s paper about how the holiday is breaking out of the old definition of romantic love and into a broader sense of love among friends and family. Here’s a link to today’s story. To report this story, I sent out a raft of e-mails to the great people I’ve met as a reporter and blogger. I heard back from quite a few of you, and many people had an interesting story on the topic. Here are some of them that I wasn’t able to fit into my story for the paper:

The dog ate my Valentine: That was the case at the home of Eleanor Petigrow of Goldens Bridge, a mother of three daughters ages 7, 10 and 13. Knowing her daughters like to give presents to their friends, Eleanor planned ahead and right after Christmas bought a bunch of presents, including a huge chocolate heart and jellybeans. The only problem was she stored them behind the TV set in her office — a location reachable by the family’s 90-pound yellow lab. “I got a call at work. The dog had eaten everything and was really sick. We had to take him to the hospital and have his stomach pumped. They had never seen so much chocolate in a dog,” said Petigrow, who was scrambling earlier this week to replace the gifts with homemade chocolate lollypops.

Romance, what’s that?: Just ask Anne Colluci of White Plains, who nixed the idea of a fancy night out when she considered the cost and logistics of being a mom. “My husband and I had a fleeting thought of going to dinner at our club, Westchester Hills Golf Club, on Valentine’s Day. They are having a special dinner with a band and all. However, after thinking about how much money I would spend on a sitter and the work involved in coordinating it all on a school night, I quickly dismissed the idea!” she said. Anne did, however, buy red bookmarks and pencils for her children to give as class gifts. And, when I talked to her earlier this week, she was planning a trip to the mall to buy red attire for the kids to wear to school today.

Staying home is the best Valentine: Scott van Niekerk, who runs Wholistic Physical Therapy in Brewster, is fittingly scornful of the material side of the holiday, given his line of work. He and his wife were planning to spend a family day with their “2-year-old bundle of joy and a 3-month-old bump in the tummy.” “We will do a ‘stay home from work’ day to spend with each other and our beloved first born — the BEST family gift ever,” Scott wrote in an e-mail to me.

Baby comes first: Sasha Oxman Solow, who runs Sasha’s in Rye, put together a Valentine’s gift for her son, Michael, including a stuffed animal, a book about love and a red Slinky. Michael — really Sasha, of course — is giving a box of Valentine’s Day goodies to his daddy, who will be away on business today. Sasha also bought cards from her son to his grandparents and great-grandparents. “In my store, I sell a lot of Valentines Day gifts from parents to their kids. The most popular gifts are Valentines Day pajamas with hearts on them. Moms also purchase a lot of jewelry as Valentine’s gifts. We also sell Valentines day novelties like heart-shaped lipgloss, rubber heart rings, red & white Rubik’s Cubes, Valentine-themed stuffed animals, band-aids with hearts on them and heart-shaped playing cards,” she said. Among the customers: young boys coming in for Valentine’s Day gifts for their “girlfriends.”

No ideas for the hubbie: Like me, Pound Ridge resident Lisa Brotmann, a mom of two, was behind earlier this week on the buying-for-the-husband front. But she had already lined up something for her parents and the kids. “I think that for people who are married with children, the holiday becomes more of a family holiday. For single people I am sure it is still all about the romance and flowers. I can’t imagine at this stage of my life taking time out on a Thursday night to get a sitter and go out to a romantic dinner with my husband. In fact, I was already thinking about what meal I could make that was festive for the holiday, perhaps heart-shaped pancakes or heart-shaped mini meatloaves,” she said.

Big day for busy moms: This e-mail from Gretchen Menzies of Bedford says it all: “I have spent the last two weeks decorating shoe boxes, turning them into fabulous Valentine mailboxes, working on class Valentines and planning the kindergarten class Valentine’s party (I am the crazy mom who signed up to be class parent), a festivity full of cupcakes, pink icing, games and knick knacks. I am usually not one for over-doing Valentine’s day for the family, but the kids’ school life seems to require making this the momentous occasion of the year. By the time I have iced, mailed, crafted and discussed with the kids, what’s left for romance? And to be honest, this body? Not gonna wear any lingerie any time soon.”

On a holiday shopping trip at Target in December, I just happened to look up on a high shelf and spot a really, really cute purple glitter Christmas tree that was just 2 feet tall. Purple happens to be Pumpkin’s favorite color — by far. Her room is purple, so that may be what triggered the obsession, but obsession it is.

“What color are mama’s eyes?”
“Purple.”

“What color is the sky?”
“Purple”

Me, singing: “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey.”
Pumpkin: ”… when skies are purple.”

So, the purple tree was irresistible. I thought it might be a fun novelty for the holidays. But then a wonderful thing happened. A spur-of-the-minute gift turned into a tradition. Every night before bed, we turned on the tree’s lights before reading books. Then we turned off the lamp and sang peaceful Christmas carols to the soft glow of the tree. Over the course of a month, we got used to the ritual. When it came time to put away the holiday decor, we all missed the tree.

So, I started thinking about finding another kind of light, one that would be appropriate the whole year around. Taking my cue from Pumpkin’s other obsession — cats — I found the Siamese cat lamp by Offi (pictured above) at Oompa toys.

It’s in a box waiting for Pumpkin to open tomorrow for Valentine’s Day. I am very excited to see her reaction. My only concern is that she’ll hug the lamp too much! You should have seen how crumpled the tree got!

I recently realized I have bought all of my daughter’s Valentine gifts — yes, that’s plural — and even my mom’s, but haven’t gotten one thing for my husband yet! It got me thinking: Is Valentine’s Day even about romance anymore? I looked into it a bit and found a survey that predicts the average consumer will spend $122.98 this year on Valentine’s Day. While $79.99 is likely to go to a love interest, $23.89 will be spent on other family members, $5.75 on friends, $3.02 on coworkers and even $2.65 on pets. When I read this, I realized I wasn’t alone, and I decided to write a story.

If you are buying Valentine’s goodies for the kids and others in your life, give me a call at 914-666-6189, or drop me an e-mail at jalterio@lohud.com. I’d love to hear from you.

(Oh, and I’m also exploring how Valentine’s Day has gotten to be the second biggest holiday for spending next to the Christmas/Hanukah season. Yup, second, to the tune of $17 billion this year. Even Halloween is just $5 billion. So, if you are one of those ones who goes all out for Cupid, give me a call, too.)

I think it’s time to blog on this: Too many snow days.

As I hear it, everyone seems to agree that school districts order snow days — or delayed openings, as was the case today in my son’s district — much more frequently than when we were kids. It’s certainly my experience. Or is it simply my perception?

My neighbor, who is from the Czech Republic, laughed off today’s delay, noting that when he was a kid back home there would be a foot of snow on the ground and all the kids would pray that school would close. He says it happened once that he can remember.

In my own youth, I certainly remember walking to school amid snow banks with snow falling. In recent years, including the harsh winter of 2004, it became an issue, with district worrying about making up school time because of all the snow days. I stumbled upon this story from cnn.com about one superintendent’s dilemma with it, and the fallout he endured.

But I couldn’t find a viable database that tracks the number of snow days per year. I thought this would end the debate once and for all, and determine whether schools are wimpier these days or whether it’s just our perception. One newspaper in Michigan took to the web last month and conducted a reader poll on the subject. Not exactly scientific, but it does make for some interesting results.

Of course, I’m not bringing this up with my son. Nothing a kid loves more than a snow day. It’s a hassle for us grown-ups, dealing with work and what to do with the kids and, particularly as a single parent, negotiating with the ex to reach a compromise on who takes time off, who doesn’t, whose turn it is to do so, etc. The big winner is always my son, who gets a day off. I just hope he remembers how good he had it as a kid.

In early December, we put up a holiday poll asking the Parents’ Place community about our favorite holiday traditions. Here are the answers:

Decorating the Christmas tree, 6 votes, 43%
Making cookies, 4 votes, 29%
Watching “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” 2 votes, 14%
Wrapping gifts, 1 vote, 7%
Celebrating Kwanzaa with friends, 1 vote, 7%

Check back soon for our next poll — and if you have a suggested question, let us know!

So, I was reading the news online one evening last week and saw Apple stock reached $200 a share. I shared this tidbit with my husband, who said, “You should have let me buy those 100 shares when it was $12.� He was referring to the time in the late 1990s when Apple was in the doldrums. This was before the iPod and before the Apple Store became the coolest retailer at the mall. It was also during days of eTrade and the online do-it-yourself stock-buying frenzy that went out of style after the dot-com bust. It was around that time that he did say he wanted to invest $1,200 in Apple stock. I didn’t think it was a good idea, and I persuaded him not to do it. Well, he did a quick calculation in his head and figured his $1,200 investment would be worth $20,000 now if I hadn’t said no. Then, remembering that Apple had split, noted that it would actually be worth $40,000. I felt sick inside hearing these numbers. That $40,000 could be part of a down payment on a bigger home with a backyard for Pumpkin. It could help pay for Pumpkin’s college education in 16 years — even Harvard, thanks to interest compounding. It could even mean I could have chosen to stay home for a couple of years while Pumpkin is still little. It would have been wonderful. But when I turned back to my computer screen, I saw another headline. This one was about a 7-year-old girl who received a cute purple and pink bicycle for Christmas. She went outside to ride it for the first time and was struck and killed by a driver who didn’t see her. It was the most amazing juxtaposition for me. On one hand, we missed a windfall. But on the other hand, our little girl was upstairs sleeping and safe. My momentary twinge over the lost money was gone. I just felt so full of gratitude that the only thing that really matters is ours.

I’m sure we all have our own list of New Year’s resolutions, some of which we may actually follow through on. I have friends who are vowing to diet, quit smoking and travel more in the coming year. We’ll see.

But how about the kids? As parents, we spend a great deal of time establishing and maintaining a set of rules for our children. New Year’s presents a golden opportunity to incorporate this into the annual ritual of resolutions, giving the kids a level of responsibility while allowing them to participate in what is widely perceived as an adult exercise.

With that in mind, I came across a good list of suggested resolutions put together by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which provides a good overall website to keep bookmarked. The AAP list of resolutions is simple and concise, so there’s no heavy lifting. Personally, I plan to use them as a guide of sorts when I sit down with my son to work out a list for him.

That aside, Happy New Year to all.

Less ice cream. More exercise. Less stress. More sleep. Less procrastination. More patience. Yup, it’s that time again for New Year’s resolutions and reflections. It’s interesting to me that when I think about the ways I could change to become a better mom, most of them relate to just being a better me. If I am healthier, calmer, less harried and more rested, I know I’ll have more energy, patience and playfulness to make Pumpkin happier. Too often, we working parents put ourselves last on our to-do lists. How many times have I promised myself I’d go to bed earlier so I’d have time to exercise in the morning only to stay up late going online to research something for a story I’m writing? How many times have I put off making a healthy salad only to eat something quick and easy (but fattening) later? How many times have I delayed “me� time only to end up aggravated and impatient while I pay the bills or fetch the groceries or do the laundry? Everyone talks about “balancing� work and home life, and I think it’s not a bad analogy. If you picture a giant see-saw and work and home obligations sit heavily on one side, it’s easy to see why time to do what we need to for our own sanity and health slide off the scales altogether. The fact is, there really isn’t enough time for everything we need to do. But, for me, at least, I know that in the new year I plan to make time for some important obligations to myself that I’ve put off. And I believe Pumpkin will be happier, too, as a result.

I know some of you, and maybe even the majority, will think I’m nuts. But here goes anyway: I feel a little bit guilty about teaching Pumpkin about Santa Claus. The thing is, Santa is a myth. But we don’t really represent him as a myth, do we? No, we do the whole story as if he is a real person. I found myself doing it this year. The night before Christmas, we picked out home-baked cookies and put them on a plate with a carrot (for Rudolph), poured a big glass of milk and explained all about the chimney, the flying reindeer, etc. Now, Pumpkin is just 2 and doesn’t have the greatest comprehension yet, but she understood this all pretty well. Well enough, in fact, that when it came time to pick out cookies for Santa, she choose to give him the ones that weren’t her favorites. She believed she was picking them out for a real person that wasn’t her — and wasn’t mama or dada. In the morning, she had a look of pretty gullible amazement on her face when we pointed out the empty milk glass, the missing and munched on cookies and the partially chomped carrot. (On the plus side, she is mixing up Santa with Elmo, who is one of the most important individuals in her life. When I asked her who her presents were from, she said, “Elmo.�)

Here is why I am uncomfortable: I am lying to her when I tell her about Santa. And my policy is honesty all the time. I don’t say we are out of cookies when I don’t want her to have any more — and I don’t let other caregivers do it, either. I just say, “No more.� I don’t make up stories about why we are or are not doing something, I show her respect and tell her the truth — in a way that’s appropriate for a toddler, of course. I just don’t believe in lying. I want to demonstrate in my words and actions that I respect her as an intelligent human being. I hope that will lead to a mutual feeling of trust that will last our whole lives together. I can’t help but wonder if the Santa myth presented as fact is a betrayal of that trust. After all, I am one of her most important sources of information about how the world works. Isn’t it wrong to abuse that power by pretending that Santa is real?

The other day, this issue of honesty came up in relation to a comment my mom made. Pumpkin had received a magnetic doodle pad for Christmas and was playing with it. My mom said something like, “How does this work? It’s magic.� I immediately protested from the next room where I was on the computer. I told my mom that I don’t want Pumpkin to think that everyday objects in her life are controlled by magic. I said to my mom, “We wouldn’t tell her the refrigerator keeps the food cold by magic, why is this any different?�

And in the same way, I feel ambivalent about perpetuating the Santa myth. What do the rest of you moms and dads think? If you have young children, do you feel at all guilty when you talk about Santa? Has anyone decided not to do the Santa deal? And if you have older kids: How did they react when they learned he isn’t real?