Can Santa Claus Find Us, If We're Not Home?

To parents, the holiday season may mean parties, music and pageantry, as well as a whirlwind of Christmas-themed activities, from Thanksgiving until Christmas Day. To their youngest children, the holiday season means planning for one thing-Santa Claus's Christmas Eve flight and visit. And every child understands that Santa Claus knows exactly where to leave the toys and goodies he's bringing, because he knows where every child lives.

So, many children prepare very carefully for the coming holiday. They take great pains to craft written wish-lists that they send to St. Nick, often gettng replies from the Jolly One. A lot of kids surprise their parents, by magically transforming their behavior during the holidays, in the hopes of attracting Santa's notice, that they have, indeed been good.

Santa Claus is important enough to young children, that, for all of its ceremony and celebration, its lights and its sounds, Christmas can be serious business. Yet, every now and then, parents can come carelessly close to ruining Christmas, as though they didn't understand anything at all about the holiday. Like when parents decide that, after spending every Christmas of a child's life at home, this year the family's going to Grandma's house, or to the beach, or anywhere that's not home. It's the perfect way to panic a child. After all, how is Santa supposed to know where a family's going to be, if they aren't at home?

Before a parent creates this kind of stress in a child's life, the parent needs to be able to prove that Santa Claus can find the child and leave the proper presents on Christmas Eve. It wouldn't be much of a Christmas for a child if Santa left the presents under the tree at home, if the family wasn't there.

In most cases, parents need to prove to their kids that Santa knows where they'll be. A whisper from a parent to Santa at the mall, before Santa talks to a child, can ease some fears. A personalized letter from Santa Claus to the child could also help the child to cope with the impending journey. However a parent chooses to let the child know that Santa's aware of their destination, it's something that will make Christmas a lot more stressful for the child who has to be away from home at Christmas, for the first time.

Of course, no child will totally believe that Santa can find the family, until Christmas morning dawns and the child finds the treasures Santa has left. But once that's happened, and Santa's come through, the Christmas trip is something that can become a family's tradition.