The last Christmas

"Mom, does Santa put the presents under the tree, or do you?"

That's my Winnie asking me on Christmas eve. She pressed and implied that I might put them under the tree for Santa. She said it in a thinking out loud way -- like maybe that's how it's done.

She still believes. Despite school rumors to the contrary of a jolly old delivery boy -- she was having none of it.

Tonight we were looking over our pictures of visits with Santa at the mall and she's been doing a bit of the math -- between that and the comments, a girl's going to wonder.

I paused, while I silently choked and thought of asking if she wanted to know where babies come from.

Instead I said, "Let it be magic, it's all about magic."

And that worked -- she pressed no more.