Too old for valentines day!

I have seen it all now. My daughter texted me yesterday to tell me she no longer believed in Santa Claus! To make it worse, she was sitting beside me as I was driving Susie Q down the road. Susie Q is my Nissan Quest minivan. I guess I need to start at the beginning, because I'm kind of jumping all around.

I get attached to things. I'm probably one of only three women in the United States who hates to shop. I don't like to clothes shop, furniture shop, grocery shop and I really hate beyond all else to car shop. To be honest, the only shopping I don't really mind is shoe shopping. If I was as rich as Oprah, I would change my shoes about ten times a day. I'd also have an entire barn filled with dishes, I like those too. I don't like to shop for dishes, they are too expensive and I don't have the room to store them! Anyway, I hate, hate, hate to car shop. I also am pretty cheap so the idea of spending all that money on something that is going to end up being worth nothing is not to appealing to me.

A few years ago, my green minivan, Bessie was pushing ten years old. Now this was fine with me. She was still pretty on the inside and outside. She still got me from point A to point B. And she got pretty good gas mileage. My husband started getting the new car bug and decided to take it out on Bessie. Bessie didn't help matters because one day when the kids and I were leaving school, she decided to stop working. Something about a starter giving out. That made my husband decide that I needed to get rid of Bessie and get something sporty and cool looking. Bessie had a sun-roof! I didn't need anything more sporty. After all, I was a science teacher, soccer mom.

He wanted me to get an SUV so I'd look like all the other moms around. I'm not a showy person and my basic personality is, 'if everybody else has one, leave me out'! I finally succumbed to a new vehicle as long as it had sliding doors and was a Nissan Quest. I figured Bessie did me right for 10 plus years why go reinventing the wheel? After much wrangling, silver Susie Q came to live with us. We sold Bessie, much to the sadness of my daughter, she wanted to bury Bessie in the backyard! Well, she was a part of the family. My husband shuddered thinking the whole he would have to dig! Susie Q is short for Susie Quest and we have developed a pretty nice relationship!

To get back to the Santa thing! I couldn't believe that she no longer believed! She's only almost twelve for goodness sake! When she point blank asked me, I had to give it to her straight. I said, 'it's ok if you don't want to believe but I still believe and it will break my heart if Santa doesn't come on Christmas Eve so if it's alright with you can we just pretend?' She started laughing hysterically at me because I was almost crying!

I love Santa Claus! I love hiding the presents and seeing them all out of Christmas morning. She decided it would be ok to just keep pretending. She also wanted to know how I managed to always use the same Christmas paper from Santa for her whole life. I didn't tell her that when she was two and my son was four, I bought an entire case of Santa paper so they'd each have their own paper and I wouldn't have to right their names on the gifts. I still have several rolls! I just told her that was something she'd have to ask Santa in her letter next year!

I hope she's not to old for Valentine's Day! Cupid will really be upset!