5 MeiLi- Santa

In light of the holidays coming up (which I am SO SO SO excited for) I decided to dedicate my post to Christmas! Well, more accurately Santa. Every family has household traditions when it comes to the holidays regardless of the one you celebrate, but one of the traditions that my mom has been executing for my entire life is homemade gingerbread houses. 

She takes an entire weekend (sometimes even the following week) to make the dough, roll and cut them out, bake them, assemble, and decorate them, personalizing each one for a family friend as their holiday gift. Well this past weekend just so happened to be The Gingerbread Weekend, and it led me, my mom, my 11 year old brother, and his best friend into a discussion about Santa Clause. 

Now, my mom is an avid believer in trust and never lying. Yes, some things she keeps from us, but she always finds a way to keep the truth without lying. It’s a super power of hers, kind of like the eyes in the back of her head. One particular example of this wild talent is her response to the big Santa question. Now, I’m not confirming nor denying ANYTHING about dear old Mr. Clause, but if asked about his existence my mother will reply with,

“If you don’t believe, he doesn’t come.”

This means that for my entire 17 years of life, she has never once confirmed or denied if there actually is a Santa. My little brother is at the age in the 5th grade where kids start to talk around the holidays and break innocent hearts. I’m pretty sure the 5th grade is where I first heard those incredulous rumors about Ol St. Nick. But when my mom asked my brother and his friend Luke what they believed, Taisen said,

“Of course Santa’s real. If you don’t believe he doesn’t come”

And Luke said,

“Yeah. Besides, if Santa wasn’t real then that would mean that the moms had to do all of that work and that doesn’t seem right.”

And that’s the moment at which these two wild, loud, and sometimes *slightly* annoying boys melted my heart. They were either trying to make my mom happy or still held onto their sweet innocence all the way into the 5th grade, but either way I felt so warm and fuzzy inside. It gave me my first true warm holiday spirit feeling this season.