Saving Santa's Soul

I have no doubt that my oldest son is brilliant. His teachers have all told me. He fits the gifted profile for kids his age. He never.stops.learning. And I am thrilled about this. It will take him far in this life. But if I am being totally honest, it is exhausting. Thank God for Google.

My family and I found ourselves driving home the other night at dusk. As the boys made their usual amount of noise in the backseat I looked up just in time to see a deer crossing in front of our car. I watched it trot past my passenger window as I very calmly stated, "Deer." My husband slammed on the brakes, looked around, and kept moving.

"Did you see that, boys?", I call out to the backseat. "Use your eagle eyes to look out for deer, one just ran in front of our car."

"Alex, you look out your window and I will look out mine.", instructs Matthew.

"Maffew, you look out your window and I will look at the sky because sometimes reindeer fly."

"Reindeer DO NOT fly!", says Matthew. I hold my breath. Surely he still believes in the magic of Santa? Surely he is not going to shatter his little brother's love of all things Ho Ho?

"Reindeers do not fly this time of year!", he repeats. I let out the breath I was holding.

An argument ensues. The youngest is fighting hard for year round flying reindeer. The oldest is simply sure that the reindeer would be on summer vacation.

"I am sure that Santa and the reindeer are on vacation right now.", I offer.

"No!", shouts Alex. Seems he feels very strongly about this. And I may not always understand my youngest son but one thing I do know is not to mess with him when he feels this strongly about something.

"OK, maybe the baby reindeers and the new elves are at the North Pole in training classes right now, and the experienced reindeer are at the beach with Santa.", I toss out a compromise.

"There are new elves? Is there a lot of elf turnover? What's going on up there?", asks my sweet husband.

"It's a very stressful job.", I remind him.

"They are stressed? How about trying to remember to move that damn elf every night? That is stressful!", he whispers.

"Mom, if Santa is flying around the world every Christmas Eve then when does he go to church?", asks my always thinking oldest son.

"I don't know, honey. Maybe he goes the day before."

"You don't always have to be in church, because God is everywhere, but you should go anyways.", he tells us.

"Mom, does Santa believe in God?" My oldest son delivers the final blow. I am stumped. Wow, that escalated quickly.

He then goes on to remind us that Santa travels all over the world, and not everyone all over the world believes in "our God". So is Santa a Buddhist? Is he Catholic? Does he believe in more than one God? And if he does believe in more than one god, then he won't go to heaven.

"Wait. Mom? How old is Santa? When will he die?", asks Matthew.

OK, amid all the other worries this momma has now I have to field questions about saving Santa Claus' soul. Just another typical car ride in my often crazy world.