Telling my daughter the truth about Santa

When my daughter was 4 she lost her most beloved stuffed animal, Blue Bear. We spent the day at a pumpkin patch, then went to see a movie. We have him in all the pumpkin patch pictures, remember him in the theater, but then he was gone.

For that Christmas, the only gift on her list was to get Blue Bear back. She asked Santa - twice, I believe. She talked about how she expected to find him under the tree.

I spent weeks running to every store that carried stuffed animals trying to find something that looked like this bear.

I gave pictures to store managers and asked them to call me if they got anything like it. One of my co-workers saw something she thought could pass and picked it up for me.

On Christmas Day, Santa left a different blue bear and a nice note about how he tried. The new blue bear, which was lighter in color and much larger, would be there for her to love even though he could never take the other bear's place.

She talked about how she was going to ask Santa for that bear again the next year. And, as Christmas started to approach, she stood firm in her belief that Santa would come through this time.

In October of 2004, we were doing some routine housework and noticed this fuzzy blue thing poking out by the TV.

Of course, it was the bear.

We couldn't wait to give it to Kayla. But we ultimately decided to wait until Christmas.

How often can we say we will continue our faith in someone after we have been let down once?

My mother died a few weeks later. It was tempting to pull out the bear to offer Kayla comfort to get her through. But, ultimately, we knew Blue Bear's return wouldn't replace Grandma. And he had become part of her belief in Santa.

So we held off.

On Christmas morning, Kayla had more than a dozen gifts from Santa. Blue Bear was in the pile, tucked in tissue paper inside a regular shirt box. Somehow, she walked up to the tree and grabbed that one first.

Her unwavering faith in Santa was justified.

On Wednesday morning, while driving to the day care provider who watches her on days off school, Kayla asked me whether I'd answer a question completely honestly.

She made me promise not to lie. She wanted the truth once and for all. I didn't know what was coming.

"Mommy, do you believe in Santa?"

I didn't know what to say. Was this her way of testing me? Did she want to know if I'd ever lie to her?

She's 10. Some of her friends still believe. Others don't. She's been doubting for several years.

"I believe Blue Bear is all the proof you need."

She wasn't satisfied.

"Mommy, are you Santa?"

Now I'm stuck. I promised her I wouldn't lie. But how do I answer that two days before Christmas?

I had to tell the truth.

"Yes."

She was stunned, though not surprised. She promised not to tell any of her friends or mention it to the kids at day care.

But she was haunted by one question: "Is Blue Bear the same Blue Bear? Or did you buy a new one in a store?"

I told her he was the same bear. I told her he was somehow in plain sight all that time, but we never saw him. I reminded her that he came back the first Christmas without Grandma.

"So you don't know how he came back to our house?," she asked.

"Maybe Santa only comes to the families that really need him."