The good news is that when faced with incontrovertible evidence that the Santa story is a big mythic scam, the Diva chose to ignore the facts and continue to believe. I’ve got at least a little more time savoring my girl’s adorably narrow view of reality.

The bad news is that two days after Christmas, the Pterodactyl broke his father’s heart, and it’s possible we’ll all remember the moment for the rest of our lives.

The other news is no news at all, but simply the recognition that we’ve muscled through another holiday season, me with my exuberant unattainable expectations for gratitude and joy, and Husband with his predictable, inexplicable Yuletide doom overshadowing the hanging of every ornament and the purchase of every gift.

It’s hard, I think, to have such an extended interruption of routine, and to combine it with spending hundreds (thousands?) of dollars on purchases that seem, at day’s end, to amount to 28 AA batteries and a pile of plastic. Doesn’t it seem like buffoonery? Unavoidable, traditional buffoonery?

Perhaps poor eating habits and too much alcoholic indulgence have clouded my perspective. I am, in fact, annoyed by this seasonal belly that has appeared below my ribs, and I’m way tired of cookies and brownies and chocolate and candied pecans and wine. Well, I’m not actually tired of candied pecans, but I’m glad they’re gone. And seriously, I’m even a little tired of wine. But not too, too tired of it. I’m actually having some now.

The Diva’s discovery surprised me, even though I had anticipated it. On Christmas Eve, she went to bed early partly because she was exhausted and partly because she knew Santa wouldn’t come until she was asleep. Husband was working overnight, so I was relieved to be able to organize the Santa presents early. It took me over an hour to drag the loot over from the neighbor’s garage, divvy it up, and artfully arrange it all. Then I covered each pile with a sheet so the kids wouldn’t be able to see it until Husband got home from work the next morning.

When I was done, I settled into bed to wrap some presents and watch A Christmas Story for the first time. I shot my eye out!

Near midnight, a sleepy Diva came in, and the moment at which I saw her seemed to last a hundred years. I thought maybe she hadn’t recognized the sheets as piles of presents because I often store clean sheets on the furniture before folding them (days later). I knew that habit would come in handy one day. Then I thought maybe she knew in an instant that I had done it all. Finally, stumped, I decided to play dumb. “Hi, honey,” I said, pulling her into my lap. “You’d better get back to sleep so Santa can come.”

“He came already, Mom!” she said, but I couldn’t read her expression.

“He did?”

“Yes! But he covered everything up!”

“That’s weird.”

“And he left a note saying we should wait for Daddy before we open our presents.”

“Wow! That’s so exciting!”

We sat in silence for a minute. Then I said, “I have a confession. I left the sheets for Santa and asked him to cover everything up.”

“Mom! I can’t believe you!” But she seemed pleased, like what I did offered some sort of proof.

I kept on. “I can’t believe Santa came while I was here in my bed and I didn’t even hear him!”

More silence. “I know,” she finally said. I carried her back to her bed and tucked her in. She said she wouldn’t be able to sleep. So I pretended to peek at her pile and told her she had gotten a Life board game, and she felt better.

I went to sleep thinking that either my 8-year-old daughter is not as brilliantly astute as I thought she was, or she’s desperate to cling to what remains of her girlhood. I think it’s the latter, and frankly that’s the sadder of the two.

A successful Christmas Day and Day After later, the Pterodactyl ceased being utterly charmed by Santa’s gifts and instead became infatuated with the Tyrant’s play kitchen. A bop on his sister’s head, a stolen plastic ice cream cone, a glass-cracking screech – it all led to a time-out.

While in his room for time-out, he picked up the locomotive of the age-inappropriate electric train Santa (Daddy) had given him. He ripped off the wheels. He dismantled the engine. He pulled out wires. He systematically destroyed it. Then he quietly brought the resulting pile of junk to his father.

Hot Firefighter Husband has held the hands of dying people. He has pulled broken bodies from car wreckage. He has been married to me for 15 years. But this broke his heart.

Together we picked up the remainder of the tracks and the train cars, and put them in a box. We explained to the Pterodactyl that he had broken his very special train that he loved, and that it couldn’t run without the locomotive. We didn’t yell or punish him or get angry. Then we left him in his room.

Husband cried. Pterodactyl cried. I cried. Pterodactyl pleaded through his tears. “I want my train! I want my favorite train!” Later he wrote on his chalkboard, “DAD FIX IT.” Husband has had trouble recovering. He was so proud of this, his first significant gift to his son, and though his son is just 5 years old, the rejection feels calculated and symbolic. It hurts.

That was three days ago. The Pterodactyl hasn’t mentioned his train, nor has he returned to his Christmas Day jubilant boyish self. “Let me buy him another train and talk to him about it,” my mother said. But I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do. I just know that a seminal moment has passed, an event that father and son might never speak of again but that could nonetheless shape them both.

It was the first time, though I’m guessing not the last, that we tried to make our kid’s dream come true. But in hindsight, I think we took his dream and morphed it into our own. We gave him the moon when the light from a star would have done nicely.

We tried. We just tried too damn hard. Sometimes, parenting sucks.