after the Birds And The Bees

It's Christmas time, which, in the Dial home, is always the same. There's  Mom reminding us all that "this Christmas" is going to be a "scaled down gift receiving year" and we should all expect "one thing", and it needs to be "under $5", and then Christmas morning we come out to each of the little boys having shiny new matching Mercedes Benz's and everyone with like a bajillion electronics. It's also the time when you will find 15 children and 10 adults dressed in our best Bethlehem garb displaying the birth of our Savior and acting like barnyard animals. This always ends up looking like a dress-up party where Osama Bin Laden was the muse for everyone's costume considering our version of Bethlehem style clothing equates to turbans and robes. 

About every three years one of the children has reached that golden age of childhood ruining when it become requisite to tell them the TRUTH. About mmm-hmm-mmm. The talk in between the "when a man loves and woman..." talk, "well, what are your intentions with her?". 

This year it was Joseph's turn. I asked my mom if Joseph had had THE TALK yet.

"Yeah, I'm sure we told him."

This didn't make sense considering THE TALK usually looks much more like an intervention where Kyria is holding a box of Kleenex and mom is giving the history of Santa Claus saying, "There really WAS a guy named Santa Claus in Switzerland who gave out presents to children, so NO you're parents haven't been lying to you." All the older kids get to stand by and watch the poor innocent child have their first of many difficult talks about how things aren't perfect and no, magic men don't come into your life and give you presents (they are still trying to teach me that one). We as the older children get some sick thrill out of this because we remember being talked to about the same thing and how it felt like a part of your heart had just been taken away.

"Are you sure, Mom? I would have remembered."

"Ya. He knows."

Well, this was disappointing. Nikka and I had already planned to tell him so we could be those cool older sisters that tell the younger siblings the truth about something childish; their introduction to sadness and disappointment. Kind of like the sister who lets her sibling try pot or alcohol under her watchful eye. Except I do not condone either of those things, so I will stick to telling my parent's secrets to gain popularity.

Despite my mom insisting that she had already spoiled the surprise, we pulled Joseph aside and asked if he knew.

"Yes."

"Did Mom and Dad tell you?"

"No."

"What?! How do you know?"

"I don't know."

"It was public school wasn't it?"

"Ya. Plus common sense. I mean if I was a reindeer and I could fly I would have better things to do than carry around 42 tons of presents for a fat man."

Children today are too smart. I believed in Santa until I was 12 years old. And that was even after a year when my dad came into my room in the middle of the night Christmas eve and said, "Whatever you do, don't come out of here. I know you hear banging around but that's just because there are elves outside your room and they are working." I came out the next morning to a life size dollhouse and was really glad those elves stayed at our house that long. Really,  12 year old Elyse? Are you really that gullible? I have to give him props though. Reindeer really aren't believable. We need to tell the next generation a different story. I vote Helicopters.

And now, no children will be allowed to read my blog again. I have successfully made this a censored site!