Phone Calls From Santa

My mother and my husband like to prank call each other. I know, I know. They are a little old for this, but they have so much fun doing it. They call each other and leave elaborate messages on each others' voicemail, pretending to be weird, obnoxious characters and leaving equally ridiculous and obnoxious messages. I'm just not like them. I don't do voices and would probably laugh through my whole message if I tried.

So I took a different tactic and pulled prank phone calls on my own. Cincinnati Bell offers free phone calls from Santa. So I scheduled each of them to get phone calls from Santa at the same time. I'd hoped that they would each think the other was making the call and pranking them, and that they'd be confused to learn that they'd each gotten one at the same time.

It didn't work.

My brother answered the phone at my mom's house and hung up, thinking it was a telemarketer. My husband answered his cell phone, heard, "Hello, Michael. This is Santa Claus calling from the North Pole," and immediately turned to me and said, "Why did you have Santa call me?"

But then our house phone rang and my 11-year-old daughter answered. (After all, it would be weird if I didn't have Santa call the only actual child at our houses, wouldn't it?) She's hovering right at that age where we're not sure whether she believes anymore or not. She says she does, but we can't imagine that all her friends and cousins aren't telling her otherwise. I figured that by now (6th grade) she would think it wasn't cool to believe in Santa any more.

So she answered the phone and Santa greeted her by name and started giving his spiel. She hung up with a confused expression on her face. I asked her who'd called. She looked at me and my husband and said, "Santa. But that's weird. I always thought Santa was Daddy."

So, I'm not positive. I still can't be sure. But I think, I think -- she believes!