Hanukkah Harry

Hanukkah Harry

 Before we had children, Agent Daddy and I were intellectuals.  Because we were intellectuals, we had philosophical discussions about why parents should never lie to their kids and how to solve the world problems like hunger and parking at the mall during the Christmas season.

One of these great intellectual discussions involved Santa. Yep Santa, the Easter Bunny, and you guessed it, the tooth fairy. How can you tell your kids not to lie to you when you perpetuate lies to them? So in our great intellectual wisdom ( based entirely on theory as we had no children) we decided not to have Santa in any decorations for
Christmas. Christmas is a religious holiday and should be respected as such. At least that was our theory.

This dedication to not having Santa's in our home lasted for three whole months. Agent Daddy and I were married in October and in December his mom, my brand new mother in law, showed up on our door step with a two foot high Santa, Father Christmas looking thing, as a gift for our first Christmas. Now I may have been a new wife but I knew that telling my brand new, did I mention she has no other children, mother in law to take back her symbol of capitalism, was probably not the right way to handle the situation. I smiled and thanked her for her thoughtfulness. Then when she was gone asked Agent Daddy how exactly we could live by our intellectul principles and not alienate his mom.

Agent Daddy, who has a wisdom beyond intellectualism, stated "It is not a Santa it is a Hanukkah Harry."
"Hanukkah Harry," he told me, was "Santa's friend who delivers presents to the Jewish boys and girls." Sounded legit so I went with it.

 Every year after that we would say hello to Hanukkah Harry and discuss where he should go. Fast forward to having kids. I never really thought about the need to explain Hanukkah Harry to my kids. We still have no other Santa's in our house at Christmas. Then one day the Tech Monkey comes home from 5th grade with an F, and a giant question mark on his writing assignment.

Apparently his teacher had never heard of Hanukkah Harry and his adventures, which Agent Daddy  had told and embellished for 10 years. So when he was instructed to write a Christmas Story, Tech Monkey told one of his favorite stories about Hanukkah Harry. A story about how Santa got sick one Christmas and Hanukkah Harry stepped in on Christmas Eve to deliver presents to all the Gentile kids so Christmas would not be ruined by Santa having the flu.

The Tech Monkey was horrified to learn that Hanukkah Harry was made up and no one else had ever heard of him. At this point Agent Daddy explained to me and Tech Monkey that Hanukkah Harry was a Saturday Night Live Skit that Agent Daddy had co opted. So guess who was left to go explain to the teacher that the Tech Monkey really had done the assignment she requested. It really is not  his fault that his parents are weird.