@y’all you’re welcome
Oh man, this reminds me of one of the things I witnessed when working with some of my favorite kids after school, back when they were in kindergarten. It was getting close to our winter break.
I was in a small room coloring with a few of them, and one of them goes, “okay, wait, none of the kids in this room do Christmas, right?”
And they all reply that no, they don’t do Christmas, they all do Hanukkah.
“Okay, you all know The Secret, right? That Santa Claus is their parents? My parents told me last year, but it’s a secret, and we CAN’T tell the Christian kids.”
So the Jewish kids at my school have definitely has conferences on how seriously they take that responsibility.
once my first grade class went to go visit santa and i was too nervous to opt out because if i just raised my hand in line and said ‘santa isn’t real though, i’m not doing this’ everyone would be super crushed and i took the teacher aside and explained the problem and she said brightly ‘well i’m sure santa listens to every little boy and girl!’ and i was like welp.
so i quietly stood in line for santa, sat on his lap, and when he said ‘ho ho ho, little girl, and what would YOU like’ i leaned in and whispered ‘they made me do this, but i know you’re not real. i’m jewish.’ to let him know he could take a break or something and he said ‘oh! well then!’ like he had no idea what to say to that and i had this horrible little kid realization that i’d just invalidated his entire job of pretending to be santa so i said ‘i really like your beard though’ and he said something jolly like ‘ho ho, you’re too kind!’ and then it was the next kid’s turn.
he smelled nice though. good job, pretend santa man.