Don't get me wrong, she believes wholeheartedly in Santa. She just thinks he gives a light switch to the kids on the naughty list. Really. And she won't be convinced otherwise. In fact, she is declaring that as gospel to her younger sister and any other kids who will listen.
Why a light switch? For the past two years or so, we've been reading Laura Ingalls Wilder books aloud to her (and Peanut just got to read her first as well). She loves Laura and Mary books (as she calls them), and we intersperse them with picture books. Being that those books are set in the mid-1800s, apparently the lore at that time was that if you were naughty, Santa would put a switch in your stocking. Like, the kind of switch you get a lickin' with -- but that part is just implied. (and she wouldn't know what a "lickin'" was anyway)
The reference to the switch in the stocking has shown up in two of the books, as I recall. Both of those books are probably three books ago in our reading. But Jellybean remembers it well -- well enough to reinterpret switch to mean light switch, even though such a thing didn't even exist at the time. What other kind of switch is there to a 5-year-old?
She was having a conversation with Peanut about Santa, and I heard her espousing this belief. I had to choke back my giggles, and at the same time, I was savoring her innocence.
Let this serve as a warning: If you wake up Christmas morning and have a light switch in your stocking, you'll know that something has gone terribly wrong.
