he KNOWS! and he knows that we know that he knows...

tidbit of our conversation in the car-
Kyle: "mom, is Santa real?"
me: "what do YOU think?!" (that's always my answer)
Kyle: "I dunno. I kinda don't think he is. Well, maybe he is. I dunno."
me: "do you really want to know the answer? If you thought Harry Potter was real and it crushed you to find out Hogwarts and all of it was make believe, would you be bummed?"
Kyle: "I dunno. But I know that he (Harry) isn't real, because there's no such thing as magic. Just what Jesus does. that's real."
me: "If you really want to know, how 'bout we talk about this tonight?"

a few hours later while tucking the kids into bed...

Kyle: "OK, so you said you would tell me. Is it all fake?"
Me: "I will always tell you the truth. You can ask me one question."
Kyle: "he's not real, is he?"
Me: "why do you think that?"
Kyle: "because God didn't make reindeer to fly. And there's no way one man can deliver all those presents."
Me: "you're right. He isn't real. God did not make a big fat man to live forever and deliver toys to sleeping kids at Christmas. In fact, if you ever see a man in a jolly red suit sneaking around the house, please yell for help."

We had a nice conversation about keeping "the secret" and not ruining it for others, and not even hinting at "the secret" because it's fun for people to pretend for a while. I asked him if he's disappointed in it all, and he said no. He said he "needed to know if he was real or not before he has kids, in case he has to be the one to do the presents."

Then, Kyle brought up all these cool miracles that ARE real that God has done- turned a stick into a snake, made it rain frogs, fed all those people on a few loaves of bread, turned the water into blood...

Of course, after I said goodnight and shut the door he had all these questions again. How did the carrots get on top of the roof, and who eats the cookies, and what about the different handwriting that Santa has...

Having my firstborn stop believing in Santa is NOT what I thought I would be doing on the night of my 28th birthday!!