Go Ask Dad: The magic of 'thank you'

Santa has it easy compared to the tooth fairy.

On the morning of Christmas Eve, our youngest woke up with “a window in my mouth” from her missing tooth. That night, we dutifully placed it under her pillow, just like the time before and the time before that. The Tooth Fairy should be racking up frequent flyer miles to our house. Yet, do we leave milk and cookies for her? We do not.

On Christmas morning, the under-the-pillow offering barely registered a blip of acknowledgment. What is one dollar bill compared to the slather of gifts by the fireplace? How can a single fairy be expected to compete with the resources of Saint Nick and the entire North Pole of elves behind him?

At bedtime, my daughter remembered the tooth fairy. We wondered if perhaps Santa had crossed paths with her in our house. Perhaps he even shared a cookie! Mention of that offering to the big guy jogged her memory of the note she had left for Santa, which she had written on the back of her kindergarten picture, so he would jolly well know who sent it. My daughter decided the other mysterious late-night visitor would also like a thank-you note.

Ah, but would the tooth fairy know to come back? My daughter didn’t have another tooth to place under her pillow with the note! But I assured her that it’s always a good thing to share gratitude, and while I couldn’t explain it, I felt sure that the tooth fairy would retrieve her note. After all, these things are magical.

Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of Little Big Moments, a collection of mini-essays about parenting, and Tigers, Mice & Strawberries: Poems. Both titles are available most anywhere books are sold online. Taylor-Troutman lives in Chapel Hill where he serves as pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church and occasionally stumbles upon the wondrous while in search of his next cup of coffee.