Celebrating the real magic of festive mythology

Santa Claus is coming to town－or is he?

This may be one of the last years he comes to our home, at least.

That's because my son recently lost a tooth－and his belief in the tooth fairy.

"I know it's you guys who put the money under my pillow!" he said accusingly, after finding a few yuan in place of his front incisor.

I asked him why he thought that. "Because ghosts and monsters and fairies aren't real!"

Seems the things we've told our kids to make them not afraid of the dark have come back to haunt us.

Our 10-year-old daughter either isn't suspicious or is playing along convincingly.

When she was 8 or so, she told my wife:"Mama, I don't think the Easter Bunny is real. But I'm not sure Baba (Dad) knows he's not. So, we shouldn't tell him."

We've made it a point to raise our children to believe in the mythical figures associated with Western holidays, such as Santa, the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy.

They were magical characters of our childhoods. And pointing out Santa doesn't bring gifts to naughty children is very useful when your kids are misbehaving.

But it seems all the more important to give our children, who were born and raised in China, some cultural links to our homeland and their passport country, the United States.

My wife and I didn't celebrate any Western festivals after we moved to Beijing, aside from putting up a Christmas tree and baking traditional cookies, until we became parents.

Since then, we've bought Halloween costumes, carved jack-o'-lanterns and stuffed stockings.

And we've stashed Easter eggs in ancient desert ruins in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the forests of Hebei province and on a yurt-studded mountainside in Beijing's outskirts. We've also hidden them near our home under the gazes of curious grannies wondering what the heck these foreigners were doing, concealing colorful eggs in the crotches of trees and clumps of weeds.

Local tots often descend on and devour much of the loot before we can lure our children to the scene on some pretense. A greater risk is that they might tell our kids we hid them, rather than the Easter Bunny.

My brother was unusually young when he stopped believing in Santa.

So, my father and I concocted an elaborate hoax. When I heard jingle bells ring on Christmas Eve, I'd bring my brother out to secretly steal a peek at Kris Kringle－that is, my dad dressed for the part－stacking gifts under the tree.

Our plan worked perfectly－except that, rather than stare with wide-eyed wonder and joy, my brother sobbed in terror.

Indeed, both of our kids are becoming increasingly inquisitive of, if not skeptical about, the logistics of delivering so many presents or eggs in a single day.

And where does the tooth fairy get all that money? A former British colleague, whose wife is Chinese, wrote about their son asking if the tooth fairy paid out using WeChat in China.

No longer believing in such entities is a rite of passage that marks a certain loss of naivety, if not a particular innocence, for children in the cultures that perpetuate their legends. They're no longer "little kids" but "big kids".

One thing I'd like for Christmas is for our kids to stay kids for a bit longer. The years, the Christmases, are passing by too fast.

But, alas, this isn't something Santa can bring me since I stopped getting gifts from him when I stopped being a kid myself.

So, I'll enjoy the enchantment of this Christmas' magic with our children while it lasts.