Christmas Day, part two

Carol quietly closed the door behind her and took a deep breath. She was wondering whether she’d done the right thing; he seemed really disappointed and she didn’t like doing that to him. She walked as quietly as she could back to her bedroom.

Dan was already asleep but she knew she had to talk to him about this and it couldn’t wait until the morning, especially since Jamie would probably be up early as he has been every previous Christmas day, hopefully full of excitement as usual. She got into bed next to him and gave him a gentle nudge.

“I told him,” she said quietly. He didn’t move. She said it again, this time while pinching his arm. He jumped.

“Told who what?”

“I told Jamie about Father Christmas.”

“You did what? I thought we were going to talk about that first!”

“I know, but he caught me leaving his stocking, I had to give him an explanation and I couldn’t continue to lie to him. I thought he was old enough to handle it but he doesn’t seem to have taken it very well.” Her voice was starting to crack with emotion.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m sure you’re right, he’ll be fine. He just needs to think about it for a little bit.”

“I’m not so sure, he seemed pretty angry. I hope we didn’t leave it too long before telling him.”

“I don’t think there is a right time; you know how I feel about telling kids this stuff. Did you tell him the same goes for the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy and the rest?”

“No.”

“Well, we’ve got that to look forward to then.”

“Yeah, let’s see how he handles this first. We need to get some sleep; he’ll be up again in a few hours.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m sure he’ll be fine. Ultimately he needs to know the truth.”