Faith

I would like you all to know that I am a fundamentalist Unitarian Universalist Atheist. My Unitarian Jihad name is Sister Katana of The Short Path. Since I believe in inclusion I also have a jihad name with the First reformed Unitarian Jihad: Sister Cudgel of Debate (I think my husband believes the the first reformists know me better). That being said I have always tried to nuture my daughter's belief system with the tenets of the Unitarian Universalists. She asks, I tell her what I believe, I explain others have different beliefs and we need to respect them even if we don't believe with them. When she has asked to go to church or synagogue I have said sure and hopefully she will find her path when she grows up that she is comfortable with.
Her faith may very well be different from mine.
I have come to this conclusion because even though she is six, she believes in the father, the son, and the holy spirit. We never told her Santa existed and she has never received a present from Santa. When she was 4 she saw a picture of her cousin's Christmas morning. The room was filled with presents, there must have been 100 presents and she said very solemnly 'see, that's proof Santa exists.' I had never known we were questioning Santa until then but that was the start. Then, a few months later the Easter Bunny came to visit because hide and seek is a really fun game, especially when what you find has little toys and candy. The final straw was when she lost her first tooth and got a dollar. She wanted to believe in Santa. She wanted it so much.
She made a big decision. She was going to prove to us that Santa exists. and the Easter Bunny. and the tooth fairy. All of them. She was going to collect data, she was going to test hypotheses, she was going to document her findings. She came up with this idea last May and she has only come up with two plans, one for the tooth fairy and one for Santa.
Her plan for the tooth fairy:
1. Lose a tooth
2. Place the tooth in her tooth jar
3. Wake up when the tooth fairy comes
4. Bring the tooth fairy to us in our bedroom
This plan had one major flaw. She is a heavy sleeper. When she lost her tooth I folded a dollar like a bow tie and left a second, unfolded bill under her pillow. This, in her mind, validated the existence of tooth fairy because clearly I left a dollar and someone else did too. And she knows her father doesn't believe in the tooth fairy so it couldn't be him. Clearly this was proof of the tooth fairy.

Santa was going to be a bit tougher. For starters her dad has told her outright that he doesn't exist. It's pretty difficult to go against what you parents tell you. I have never told her he doesn't exist but I have asked her some probing questions: has she ever seen Santa in our house? Has Santa ever given her a present? Shouldn't he have because she is, in general, a good girl and Santa was supposed to bring presents to good girls and boys? She wasn't going to let this heretical nonsense get in the way of her plan to prove Santa exists.
The Santa plan:
1. Bake sugar cookies and maybe the candy cane cookies too.
2. Put the cookies out on a plate on Christmas Eve, along with some milk (white not chocolate)
3. Sing over the cookies, a Christmas carol, of course.
4. Put a spy camera on one of her 'real' stuffed. Her real stuffed animals are the animals who follow the guidelines as presented in the Velveteen Rabbit. Funny Bunny is real. She won't tell us who the other animals are so we don't know which will have the camera that is going to record the gift drop off.
5. Replay the camera in the morning and see where the presents came from.
6. Open said presents.
This plan has two flaws: the first is that she doesn't own a spy camera. This is the flaw I see. The second is a problem she noticed: we haven't made cookies yet. She sees this as the weakness because she has to wait for me to help her with the cookies. She asked me Saturday and Sunday if we were going to make cookies. I explained we still have 3 more days to make them (I am out of town Monday to Friday this week, leaving Saturday, Sunday and Monday). She feels this is cutting it short but I have promised her we will get at least one batch of cookies done.
Ultimately I am left with this question: do I eat the cookies she leaves out? I am not giving her presents from Santa, I am giving her presents from me, the cats and the dog. If I eat the cookies will it be leading her down the wrong path? I would going against what my husband wants to teach her? I teach her that we celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas and Solstice because all three holidays are representational of hope and miracles and I am a Polly Anna optimist.

I can't wait to see what she comes up with for the Easter Bunny but I already told her we were celebrating early since the Ashleys are coming to town to stay in our new guest residence in March (I hope, and this is the season of hope, so I will hope for the their visit).