Puppies, the Santa myth, and Entrance #5.

The Boy (tm) and I went to the mall yesterday.  For someone who's only (almost) 5, he has an uncanny sense of direction.  He knows exactly where to go to find the toys, the rides, the ice cream, and the puppies (yes, friends, there is a creepy little pet store with puppies and kittens inside the local mall).  On this particular trip, I purposefully parked by entrance 5, a door we hadn't previously entered just to test his reaction.  My experiment didn't faze him, he knew exactly where to go first (the ice cream) and marched us straight there making all the right (and left) turns.  I, on the other hand, was completely turned around.  Good thing he was with, I mightn't have gotten out of there had I been alone.

Santa Claus was present, his fenced-off courtyard decked with trees and lights, music jingling and lap ready.  Being a Tuesday afternoon on a school day, and almost 6 weeks before freaking Christmas, there were no kids, so Santa was texting on his throne and the elves were chatting behind the ginormous cardboard sleigh.  The Boy pointed straight at him, and announced to me "Dad, I thought he wasn't real?  He's right there!"  After a moment's contemplation before I could respond, he added resignedly, "oh, nevermind, that's just a man in a Halloween costume.  Santa's not real."  I'm almost positive I heard Santa chuckle as he quickly tucked his smartphone under a leg, realizing there was a kid in the mall.  One of the helper elves on the other hand looked at me like I was the one that told an (almost) 5 year old that Santa wasn't real.  I stared back.  She looked down.  We walked toward the puppies.  

I'm dreading the letter from his pre-school teacher that asks us to stop The Boy from debunking Santa.