Don't stop believin'

Christmas 2005

By Kevin Hunsperger
@kevinhunsperger & @my123cents on Twitter
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It's the end of an era here at the Hunsperger household.  My daughter hit double digits in 2015 and I knew the inevitable was around the corner.  Right before Christmas she started asking about Santa.  I danced around the topic, hoping to have one last Christmas of her believing in the big guy.  I can't explain why it was so important to me, it just was.

Last pic with Santa... for now

Apparently the other night she asked my wife what the deal is, and she explained it to her.  Brooke is in fourth grade and at 10 years old, I suspect most of her friends have already had the conversation with their parents.  We told her older brothers when they were eight and nine years old.  Because they're so close in age we had the conversation at the same time with them.

Nick the Elf vs. Harry Potter

While I'm sad this phase of our family life has passed, I'm proud that she asked and wanted to know more about the tradition.  This doesn't change anything in terms of our love of Christmas.  It also won't keep me from continuing the Elf on the Shelf tradition.  I have just as much fun with that as Brooke did finding "Nick" each morning.  We never used the elf as a way of modifying our kids' behavior.  It's always just been a fun game we've played.