I inadvertently killed Santa Claus

Most kids love Christmas and talk about what presents they hope to receive as the holidays grow closer. My kid talks about Christmas all year long. He rarely gets toys or presents unless its A) his birthday B) Christmas or C) Kama is within a five mile radius. So that means that we have a "list" that gets added onto every time we visit Target. It's one way we keep him from freaking out after we say no repeatedly to unnecessary crap. At this point, I would guess that it's actually harder to find something that's NOT on his list than is.

So it's not strange that the topic of Christmas and what he was wishing for came up in the car ride to school the other day. For some reason, Santa was mentioned. I can't remember if he straight up asked me if Santa was real or if it came out somehow, but I basically told him that Santa was pretend. It happened so fast and I was so nonchalant about it. We don't really play up the whole Santa thing and to tell you the truth I am not all that into them believing he is real. But it isn't like Chris and I had decided we were going to tell him that he was fake either. He just asked and I just answered. I was taken aback by how confused he was. It went something like this...

Liam: "Wait, he's not real? He is just pretend?"
Me: "That's right he's just pretend."
Liam: "Well then who bought me my shark boat?"
Me: "Mommy and Daddy bought you your shark boat."
Liam: "No you didn't"
Me: "Umm, we most certainly did. We worked very hard and bought you all of those presents for Christmas. But please don't go telling all your friends Santa isn't real because some people believe he is real."
Liam: "Real is a bad word?"
Me: "Ugh, no Liam. I am just saying not to talk about Santa being pretend at school, ok?"

Yea, I am sure that cleared it all up. Whatever, now he knows. It'll be interesting how this all plays out during Christmas. Sorry, Santa.