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Dear Santa,
Thanks for all you have done in the last 15 years.
Thanks for the bikes and the Nerf guns and the Lego sets. For the iPads and the Airsoft guns and the "family size" packs of Roman candles.
We've made some good memories. Like that time our older son got a miniature golf cart and immediately threw it into reverse and slammed into the Christmas tree. Or the time we stayed up until 4 a.m. helping you put together that blasted ping-pong table.
My point is, you've never let us down, Big Guy.
Here's the deal, though, Santa. I have a feeling this might be the last letter you get from us - at least until it's time for our future grandkids to write. It's just something I sense, a mood, a feeling.
This year our younger son, who's 10, has been really good. But he has begun talking about you like you're a rich uncle instead of a jolly old elf. He wants a hoverboard and a closet full of lesser goods.
Meanwhile, he is living in that halfway zone in which his friends have probably started to question the whole Santa experience. He is smart enough to seize the moment, to know that it's easier to negotiate with a magic benefactor than a tight-fisted parent. In other words, he is milking his leverage.
While fine-tuning his Santa wish list this year, he let it be known that money is really no object when Santa is involved. A couple of times I've had to bite my tongue when I had the impulse to say, "Son, we need to talk." But I just can't go there.
I still remember trying to have the complete "birds and bees" talk with my older son when he was about 10. He literally fell asleep in the car and began snoring before I got to the actual mechanics of procreation. Obviously, I had jumped the gun. Rookie mistake.
So I'm going to be careful not to get the sleigh ahead of the reindeer on the Santa talk. It's not a great sacrifice since just thinking about it gives me a lump in my throat.
There's still tons of boyish charm in our 10-year-old's anticipation of Christmas. Talking about Christmas morning still gets him so amped up that his whole body vibrates.
He carries the Christmas spirit around 24/7. He wraps all the family's gifts, makes a gingerbread house every year with his mother and closely tracks the movements of our house "elf on a shelf," Nikki.
He had the role of Dasher in his school's Christmas program and, right up until performance time, he worried about not being a successful reindeer. His mother dyed a T-shirt brown so that he would be in uniform, but he was still worried that his antlers might fall off.
I've been thinking about a former co-worker with several children who once told me that she sidestepped the Santa dilemma by putting off "the talk" forever. With a wink and a nod, her adult children still get Santa gifts.
I like it. In fact, I may try it. No Santa talk, then. No sad goodbye. Ever.
So Santa, let's just say so-long for now, not goodbye.
We'll holler back atcha again about 2030, maybe, and start all over again.
Sniff. Sniff. Nod. Nod.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.