The weeks leading up to Christmas time would seem to be a good time for children to be on their best behavior. All it takes when kids get out of line is to remind them that Santa Claus is watching to see if the children have been good when making out his list of gifts to bring.

Olivia had been counting down the days to Christmas ever since Thanksgiving using two cubes with numbers on them that Granna bought for her with a Santa Clause. That had been the first thing she did every morning after she got up until Christmas and her wish list included: A robot pet dog, a new art set, a Diego playset (Diego is Dora the Explorer's cousin), a hair braider, an American Doll, wooden animals, a computer and an Amazing Amanda.

But soon after within a week of the big day arriving, Olivia seemed starting to get worried. She knew that 'bad' boys and girls received a lump of coal, if anything at all. She became noticeably concerned about the arrival of Santa Claus.

On one particular day, triggered by me pointing out a couple of mistakes in her Chinese homework, she became unusually irritated and said to me: "I am bad!"

"No, you are not!" I immediately corrected her and tried to console her that it was okay for her to make mistakes because that's how we learn and I was not mad at her at all.

"No, I am bad! I am a bad girl!" she insisted and got even more upset and started crying. I knew right away something else was bothering her.

"No! That's not true! Honey, you are a very sweet girl. Why are you saying you are a bad girl?" I asked.

She wouldn't tell me at first but then admitted that she had lied at school and she was afraid that Santa would think she was a bad girl and not give her any gift for Christmas.

"Mommy… I don't think…Santy (how she calls Santa)… is going to …give any gift to me… because I have been a bad girl." She kept on saying this with her choking voice and every time ended up crying very sadly as she was truly afraid that her worry would become true.

We tried to cheer her up by reminding her of all the good things she had done, how nice she had been to her friends and other people and how she was generally a very good big sister to her brother, but she would not be convinced otherwise and would not forgive herself for her "bad" behavior.

Then she calmed down a little and ran to her room. Pretty soon she came downstairs again and dropped off a piece of paper in front of me. It turned out that she located the list she had made out for Santa Claus, and wrote a warning on the back to Mr. Claus. She felt that she was so bad that she needed to be punished.

(I should note that Olivia's spelling is generally much better than this note. But given that she was upset and wrote it quickly, it's understandable. Correcting it, the note reads: "Don't give any of these toys to me. I've been very very very very super bad! I am very bad !!!!! To: Santa From: Olivia)

Strangely, this note somehow helped her to release her emotion. Very soon, she was playing and laughing again. And of course she had a great time at Granna's during Christmas and received a lot of gifts as she had been a good girl and "Santa knew that Olivia learned that lying is not the right thing to do and she would not do it again".