There’s a lot of down time at a wake, time that begs to be filled with conversation. In fact, standing around talking is pretty much the intended principal occupation of wake-goers, if I’m reading the situation correctly. And during periods of low mourner traffic, family members have no one to talk to but each other, which is probably how most of those I-wanted-the-breakfront family feuds get started.

So, at my father-in-law’s wake, Husband and his brother were reaching for conversational topics and arrived at the subject of parenting tips. Brother-in-law — a former military man who has requested that we address him as “Patriarch” in recognition of his new standing in the family — has an interesting technique that he calls “the chirp.” Basically, he’s trained his children to respond to him instantly when he emits an unobtrusive chirping noise. I’ve seen his college-age son stop dead in his tracks and rush to his dad’s side when chirped at from across a crowded, noisy room, then fetch his dad a beer at his request. Good stuff, this.

To keep the conversation going, Husband offered up the tidbit that we were considering not doing the Santa Claus thing to the hilt at Christmas. We’d still teach Aitch the story — you could hardly avoid it — but we don’t want to go the extra step of insisting that Santa’s real.

I should preface this story by saying that our anti-Claus stance is not motivated by a strong, unshakeable conviction. We don’t think that children will be scarred for life if they believe in Santa Claus for a while, but we don’t think they’ll be scarred if they don’t believe, either. Our main objection to Santa is that is seems kind of unnecessary. Kids have great imaginations — why ruin a pleasurable fictional experience by insisting on its reality, and then tying yourself in knots explaining the obvious contradictions until the child’s reasoning faculties progress to the point where he can prove you wrong with authority?

It’s interesting, though, that encouraging a child’s belief in Santa Claus conflicts with both rationalism and Christianity. Pre-disillusionment, the rationalist can hardly promote the concept of a telepathic elf while simultaneously debunking the supernatural. Post-disillusionment, the Christian can hardly admit the fallacy of Santa Claus while insisting that God is still alive.

Anyway, during the dinner break, Brother-in-Law decided that he would have some fun with this information, and he let the Tribal Council (Husband’s four sisters) in on the Santa veto. At this point all hell broke loose, in a merry kind of way. The Tribal Council ganged up on Husband and peppered him with objections. We’ll deprive Aitch of the magic of Christmas! The other parents will crucify us when Aitch tells their kids that Santa’s a fake! We’ll lose a prime blackmailing opportunity! It was rather entertaining to see Husband trying to cope with being scolded by four sisters at once, not to mention several nieces and a sister-in-law who got in on the act.

So the various in-laws began plotting Ninja maneuvers to trick Aitch into believing in Santa in spite of us. They conspired to sneak up to our house on Christmas Eve, make sleigh tracks in the snow and reindeer noises on the roof, play Christmas carols while Aitch slept, etc. It was all in good fun until Mother-in-Law got wind of the conversation, and said angrily:

“You can’t deprive that child of the magic of Santa Claus. If you’re going to do that, he would have been better off if you left him where you got him.”

?!

I don’t even know where to begin parsing that. Let’s put aside, for the moment, the veiled insult to Aitch (i.e., a commodity that might be returned if conditions didn’t suit) and the blatant insult to us (i.e., we’re such bad parents that Aitch would be better off without us).

All that aside…the cornerstone of her belief system, the bedrock of Western civilization for her, is Santa Claus? I mean, Santa Claus? This piece of fiction, this invention of retailers, this parental untruth is the litmus test that would fail us as parents?