Paulina Learns that mistakes happen...

A family with four children came to Mingle With Kringle. Two girls, Paulina, 8, and Poppy, 9, and their two older brothers (they get a post of their own!). The notes read "if Santa could explain to Paulina that it's okay to make mistakes that would be immensely helpful." No problem! So after the posed pictures were taken I started talking to the children, as I do. I asked them each what they wanted for Christmas and we talked a bit about those things. Then I turned my attention to Paulina...

Me: Now, Paulina...Your elf tells me that you really don't like mistakes.
Poppy: NO! SHE HATES THEM!
Me: And you really don't deal with mistakes very well, do you?
Poppy: NO! SHE GETS REALLY MAD AT HERSELF!
Paulina quietly: no.
Me: I get that. Nobody really likes mistakes. But you know what?
Paulina: what?
Me: EVERYBODY makes mistakes. Even ME!
Paulina: really?
Me: Oh yeah! In fact, I'm going to tell you a story about a mistake that I made very, very recently. You see, my friend Gary over there has only ever asked me for one thing for Christmas. A nice, bright white beard. You can imagine how dirty my beard gets riding around in a sleigh with no roof on it all the time, flying through the sky, and gliding through the woods; not to mention working in the toy shop! You can imagine that it gets filthy, right?
Paulina: Yeah! I bet it gets filled with dirt and bugs and stuff!
Me: Oh yes! It does! Well, like I said, my friend Gary always just asks that I have a nice, clean white beard for the pictures he takes because it's very important to him and he really, really, likes to take really, really nice pictures for the mommies and daddies. Well, this year I decided to try something really special. You see, I decided that I wanted to try and add some magic sparkle to my beard.
Paulina: That would be COOL!
Me: I thought so! I mean, how much fun would it would be to have a beard with magic sparkle, right!?!
Poppy and Paulina giggling: YEAH!
Me: Well, to get my beard nice and white for Gary, I have to use some special magic potions. So, when I was getting my beard clean, and nice and bright white, I mixed up a batch of special magic potion. BUT, when I went to put in the magic sparkle, guess what happened!
Paulina giggling: WHAT?!?
Me: I grabbed the wrong ingredient! One of the elves tried to tell me that I didn't need that extra ingredient I was grabbing, but I didn't listen. And you know what happened?
Paulina shook her head "no."
Me: I turned my beard PURPLE!
Paulina just giggled some more!
Me: So then I had to mix up ANOTHER batch of magic potion to get rid of the magically purple. Only this time, I made the potion too strong! A bunch of elves told me to be careful, but I didn't listen. You notice that my beard is a little shorter than it was last year, right?
Paulina: Yeah!
Me: Well, like I said, I had to mix up a strong batch of potion to get rid of the magically purple beard and a bunch of elves told me to be careful, and went that potion went kablooey in my face, I ended up burning off half my beard!
Paulina: You should listen to the elves more!
Me: Yeah, that's same thing Mrs. Claus said and it's probably true! But here's the thing Paulina, I made a mistake. Sure, I was a bit upset about it at first. But then instead of getting mad at myself and staying mad at myself, I told my myself to think about why I made that mistake and also think about how I made that mistake. Then I after thinking about it for a while, I realized that now I knew how to not make that same mistake again! Then, I was able to go on with the rest of my day like nothing was wrong. So, I want you try and do something for me, okay?
Paulina: Okay!
Me: Next time you make a mistake and you get mad at yourself, I want you to try and say to yourself, "it's okay, and we'll get over this." And then I want you to just think about why and how you made that mistake. It's okay if you don't figure it all out right away, that's part of the learning process, so just try your best. And if you can't figure it out, I want you to go talk to your mommy and daddy or your teacher or even your big brother and see if one of them can help you learn to not make the same mistake again so you can just move on with the rest of your day. And if you make that same mistake again, it's okay because sometimes that's part of the learning process. Think you can do that for me?
Paulina: Okay, Santa, I'll try! I'll try real hard!
Me: I know you will, Sweetheart, and the more you try the better you'll get at it.
Paulina: OKAY, SANTA! I'll try really, really hard, then!
Me: That's all anyone can ask!

Her parents seemed very pleased, as they thanked me profusely. But then I had to talk to their brothers...but that's another blog post!