The Loss of Innocence?

So, the kid's grandma had a great idea at Christmas time. She bought a Santa suit and had the kid's grandpa come to the door dressed in the suit. He passed out presents and had the kids sit on his lap.

Despite the occasional slips such as, "Come sit on Grandpa's lap! I mean Santa!" The kids still weren't quite sure if that was in fact Santa or Hairy Grandpa (that's what they call the grandpa with - you guessed it - hair). After all, right after Santa left out the front door, Hairy Grandpa came downstairs and was very surprised to learn that he had missed Santa while he was napping.

Before this Christmas, my kids didn't even know who Santa was, really. We opted for the "put the candy in the stockings Christmas Eve" thing, with no real explanation as to how the candy got there. They sort of assumed that all Santa did was give them candy. How boring.

Then Grandma explained to the kids who Santa was one day, and they were excited to see him. So, we were sort of obligated at that point to have some presents from Santa. However, I'm sort of selfish and like the joy that comes along with buying the kids a present that I know they really wanted. I do not want to give Santa the credit for my hard shopping work!

Nonetheless, Santa came and brought a ton of gifts that Grandma had *ahem* helped him pick out. The kids were happy and believed that it was, in fact, Santa Claus himself.

Until today, when I bursted Abby's bubble.

You see, we took pictures of Santa with the kids. My laptop died at the time, so we never got the chance to show the pictures to the kids. Today I uploaded the pictures, and the kids and I sat down to look at all we had done in the past two months.

We saw the pictures of Santa. Abby told me that she had originally thought it was just Hairy Grandpa. We looked at more pictures. Santa holding Ethan, Santa holding Avery. Santa with a tattoo.

"Wait a minute!" Abby cried. "That is Hairy Grandpa! He has the same tattoos!"

*pop*

There goes that bubble.

It never pays to lie - or even fabricate - to your children, I suppose. Here are the offensive photos. The tattoo in question is on his right arm, above the glove.