Noah, Santa and God

Often, Nourit will say to me, "God is here." Or God is in the car, or on the swingset, but essentially I think she's beginning to comprehend his omnipresence. Tonight, Santa became omnipresent when she said, out of the blue, "Santa is here." "Kinda like God?" I queried. "Yes," she said. I then made a passing comment about how Santa is a good old man, but he's just pretend. God is for real, but Santa is just for fun. It was a strange moment for me. Mike and I had vaguely discussed the idea of Santa, and agreed we would downplay his "realness." When I told my 2.5 year old that Santa was just pretend, I felt like I might be robbing her of some childhood mystery. I'm sure it won't affect her negatively one way or the other - Santa's real for 4 years or not. It's still fun to have your picture taken with him downtown. But it was one of those moments that I wasn't quite prepared for. I might just need to make a chart with Noah, God and Santa all in a row, and explain the difference between all the kind looking old men with white beards.