The Feasibility of Santa Claus

...and how much time I have left with my daughter.

Mar 10, 2025

When she was about 7, my daughter sat in a circle with some friends from around the neighborhood around her age.

“Raise your hand if you believe in Santa Claus,” one kid asked.

She raised her hand.

Nobody else did.

When she got home we had a gentle, but honest, conversation that began with who Saint Nicholas of Myra historically was and how through time we now have Santa Claus. She took it surprisingly well.

The next day, she came back to me with tears in her eyes and said, “I want to believe again.”

As with many difficult scenarios, we turned to story. We had already written the first two time travel tales of The Invisible House series, so this became the fuel for the third entry.

So we got creative (more on that in a bit).

The Invisible House is set to be a 7 book series.

The reason behind the number is because there is a sobering stat that a parent will have spent about 75% of their time together with their child when they are 12-years-old.

I figure we could tell 7 middle-grade stories together by the time she passes that age.

I want to leave her with stories that will serve her later in life…and remind me to intentionally block out time to engage with her and figure out what stories she needs based on what is happening at the moment.

I find this process valuable enough that I want to share it with parents so they can connect with their kids this summer.

If you want to know more about that, you’re in the right place, because I’ll be posting those lessons here starting in mid-May, for free.

Now, back to the solution my daughter and I came up with for Santa (and why the story became timely).

Sidenote: The Lost Saint starts in Iceland, and when I visited in November 2023, I spotted him…riding a motorcycle.

What if Santa was a time traveler?

The logistics of presents being delivered to everyone was daunting for the lifetime of one man, so we started to incorporate every mall Santa who could possibly operate as a delivery man or woman where they would do local recon and make deliveries within the same hour…over and over, looping until they’ve made all of their night-time rounds (and still allowing for Santa to make appearances for big moments).

Once we sorted out the world building, we still needed to get to the heart behind it.

There are plenty of Santa stories out there, but at the end of the day, I wanted to gently direct the narrative away from presents, and more toward the importance of seeing other people and caring for them.

I won’t spoil too much of the story, but this one is a mother/daughter tale (on a couple of levels, thanks to time travel). I wanted to also shine a light on the mothers who facilitate much of the magic of the season.

Because the video in the post-post-script is a little too accurate sometimes.

In the home stretch

We’re 2/3rds of the way through our Kickstarter to help fund a print run of The Lost Saint and pay for some hosting on Fictionsmith Family to make the summer writing program a free resource this year.

We’re also 2/3rds of the way to our goal. As with any crowdfunding campaign, once the excitement of the first 72 hours wore off, so did the backing. We’re hoping for an Act 3 fight-to-the-finish finale that helps us cross the finish line, but there’s no guarantee.