… I’m running with it. The lying, that is … because, hell, isn’t that the premise upon which the entire Christmas season is built? I mean, really: a mythical guy who no one has ever seen, but who can see you when you’re sleeping, knows when you’re awake, and knows if you’ve been bad or good, for goodness sake? Oh, and then there’s that Santa dude, too.

I agree with those who say that children should learn the true meaning of Christmas, and not be taught to focus solely on a fantastical tale about a bearded fat guy in a red suit who travels in an airborne sleigh pulled by flying reindeer (one of whom has a bright red nose that glows in the dark, no less) and breaks into millions of homes in the middle of the night to leave piles and piles of free gifts. I mean, really; let’s not be ridiculous. After all, the holiday is meant to celebrate the birth of a baby who was conceived “immaculately” (and I hope for Joseph’s sake that the other guys on his job site bought that one, because otherwise the ball-breaking would’ve had to have been endless, am I right?) and who later went on to walk on water, raise the dead, feed 5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish, and ultimately rise from the dead himself—which, really, when you get right down to it, is much more believable.

So, with those two huge whoppers dominating the landscape at this time each year, it seems relatively harmless for Wonder Woman and I to amuse the kids with a little fraudulent holiday magic of our own.

For the past few years, I have plugged our indoor Christmas-tree lights and outdoor light display into two separate remote-controlled electrical adapters (and if you’ve read my Halloween tale, none of this will come as a surprise). Both are controlled by a small keychain unit similar to a car-alarm remote.

I believe Zan was 3 years old the first time I rigged the tree, and I vaguely recall saying something to him about how I would light it up using magic, then seemingly did so by activating the lights via the remote. That, of course, soon led to Zan magically activating and deactivating the Christmas-tree lights himself—just so long as Mommy or Daddy was nearby with the remote.

By last year, Jayna wanted in on the action, and suddenly our house became a mini-Hogwarts, with both she and Zan casting their own individual tree-lighting spells at random times throughout the day. Wonder Woman and I tried to play along whenever it was feasible for us to do so, but it got a little crazy, so we implemented some magical guidelines:

The magic can only be used to light the tree first thing in the morning (you know, because they are always up before the sun) and to turn it on and off a couple of times in the evening.
The two of them have to be holding hands and casting the spell in unison in order for the magic to work.

The latter rule was a particular stroke of genius, because when one of them is trying to corral the other in order to hold hands, it gives WW and/or I enough time to secure the remote—and also because there are often times when one of them would rather scratch the other’s eyeballs out than hold hands, which gets us off the hook completely.

So the cute little trick that I thought would be funny once or twice has now become an annual tradition, and I don’t have the heart to pull the plug on it (yuk yuk!), because it is incredibly entertaining to see the kids holding hands as they say “Abracadabra, alakazoo, lights turn on as strong as you can do!” (the writing credit for that spell goes to Zan, by the way), and equally entertaining to see how excited they get when their “magic” seems to work.

Watching them hold hands while seated in their carseats as they turn on the outdoor lights whenever we leave and/or arrive home is quite a hoot, as well … though, historically, that particular trick has had the potential to make things a little more complicated. For example, on more than one occasion, Wonder Woman has called me on her cell and informed me that she was pulling up to the house with the children in tow, and that they wanted to use their magic to turn on the outdoor display. This was fairly easy if the remote had been left in its prescribed location, but not so much if it hadn’t, in which case I was left to scramble about the house in hopes of finding it whilst simultaneously concocting a backup story about why the magical spell failed on that particular occasion. (If I recall correctly, I always found it. Yay, me.)

More annoying were the few times that the remote was nowhere to be found first thing in the morning—because if there’s anything better than getting up before dawn on a freezing-cold morning with two toddlers, it’s getting up before dawn on a freezing-cold morning with two toddlers who are anxious to use their magical powers to turn on the Christmas tree, but who are unable to do so because one of us failed to return the remote to its home (and bonus points if you suddenly recall leaving it in the car, in which case you get to start your day with a refreshing arctic blast).

So far this season, we’re batting a thousand on leaving the remote in its agreed-upon location, so the tree lightings have been a piece of cake—and, truth be told, I’ve not yet strung the outdoor lights, because the Side Project That Ate My Life kept me endlessly busy last weekend … and, for the past couple of days, it has been raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock … which is a shame, because it was, like, 60-plus degrees outside yesterday … but holiday-season electrocution isn’t very high up on my list of things to do, so I’m waiting it out and hoping for dry weather this coming weekend.

But back to my original premise: lying to the kids. I don’t exactly recall when it was that I learned the truth about Santa, nor do I recall being particularly scarred by that news … but it will be very interesting—and probably a bit sad—to experience that revelation from a parental perspective, and I can’t help but wonder if either (or both) of the kids will be upset with us when that day arrives.

But, hey: as long as we continue hiding the remote, we can probably keep the magical tree-lighting thing going until they hit puberty.