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I’m torn about what to do about Christmas. I was thinking about the question of whether we play that age-old charade of Santa Claus coming on Christmas Eve night. I mean these days, the window of this tradition is pretty short — once they hit school, the older kids will clue them in, and probably without much tact. Maybe I’m channeling my inner Grinch, but I wondered what was the point.

Of course Kathy chimed in and told me basically that I needed to get over it, so there you go: sage advice from a good woman.

But the fact remains that I feel kind of weird embarking upon this grand tradition. I don’t even know how to really start. Do I just start asking Dash: Do you know who Santa Claus is? Then I start telling stories about this elf and his reindeer who fly? Do I plop him down in front of the TV for the various shows? Even the Peanuts cover this same ground on A Charlie Brown Christmas, which is probably my favorite of the Christmas shows. Second would be How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but now I digress.

It’s Santa Claus I’m talking about here. I suppose the way to do this would be to read the poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” but I think that Dash would only comprehend about half the words. When you think about it, the lines are pretty ornate: “When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.” In fact most adults probably have a hard time explaining what a “sash” is.

Amazon tried to be helpful with 14,000 children’s books about Christmas. The first title I recognized was How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which came up at number six, and the second was The Night Before Christmas at 16. So it appears that I have some catching up to do in the Christmas story department.

Of course the part of this equation is the fact that Christmas is a religious holiday. I don’t ever really recall getting a straight answer from my parents (which should tell me something) how the gifts from Santa Claus ties in with the idea that Jesus was born on Christmas Day. I always loved the story of Mary and Joseph looking for a place to stay and the Nativity images of the manger — I remember as a kid thinking how cool it would be to sleep in a barn with a bunch of animals. But the connection between these two traditions was lost on me, except for the fact that they happened on the same day. To top it off, someone may have explained the purpose of a Christmas tree to me beyond it being the place where all my presents sat waiting for me to open them, but I can’t remember.

I’m all ready with my tools to assemble the various toys, but it appears that I have some boning up to do if we are going to do this Christmas thing. That said, I think Dash will be more demanding in the next few years. This year will be more about the novelty of the concept of unwrapping gifts, so I have some time.