His ten year old brother mentioned that possibly there was no Santa and so the question came, tremulously: “Is there a Santa, really?”

The inevitable question, right? But I’m not ready for my kids to leave behind the world of magic and settle fully into the world of electronica, so I said, “of course there’s a Santa, how could there not be a Santa?”

I’m not sure he believed me but then we had a New York miracle (courtesy of Hewlett-Packard, but miracles are scarce these days, so I take ’em where I can get ’em).  Caleb and I were leaving his karate promotion on Saturday–he had his winter coat zipped up tight so all that showed were his white karate pants:

As we crossed the street in front of the Flatiron Building, we saw Santa, just hanging out in front of a Hewlett Packard truck – a promotion for the HP ePrint pinters.  Santa saw Caleb and said “hey karate boy! Come on over and let me see you throw a punch!”  Caleb, mystified, took off his jacket, threw a few punches with Santa, got his picture taken (me with my iphone, HP “elves” with their cameras and new printers), and got a chocolate cookie, all in the span of about ten minutes.

“Mommy,” Caleb said, after we bid farewell to Santa, “That’s total proof that Santa is real. Because how did he know I was wearing my karate suit? There’s no way he could know that without being magic.” He held his cookie with one hand and with the other stared at his picture with Santa.

And when we got home, this:

And this:

Caleb wants, most of the time, to live in his ten year old brother’s world. But when the world of Six triumphs over the world of Ten, I breathe a sigh of relief. Because even though Six frequently just piles trials on top of tribulations, he’s the person responsible for keeping magic in our world.

And we all need more magic.

gosh, no HP didn’t offer me an ePrint printer for writing this post. But if the elves would like to drop one at my doorstep, that would be just fine and dandy with me.