An In on the Naughty or Nice List

Ever wonder how Santa comes up with his Naughty or Nice list?  Turns out he's enlisted SweetPea's help.  Who knew?  The other day she whipped out a piece of paper, drew a line down the middle and started writing names. When she was finished, I asked her what she was doing and she told me she was helping Santa out.  She pointed to the left side of the paper and said "this is the nice list".  Hmm.  I was, of course, was happy to see that I topped the nice list, but...well...it seems the only one to hit the naughty list was her baby brother.

"Sweetie", I asked, "isn't your brother nice?"

She shook her head.  "He's naughty sometimes."

"Yes, but he's nice more than he's naughty, don't you think?"

What can I say, I pleaded his case...and lost.  Sorry, Bud, I put in a good word for you. 

That wasn't the end of it though.  This past Friday when I emptied her locker, there, on a piece of red construction paper was another list.  This one was a little longer and had the names of a handful of her kindergarten classmates.  This list was pretty much 50/50 naughty to nice.  Some of the names on the "naughty" side were kids I knew were her friends.

"SweetPea, isn't Catherine your friend?"

"Yes", she answered "but today she was being bossy at me so she's on the naughty list."

Turns out the "nice" list is really the "people who are nice to SweetPea" list.  And now you know.  If you have any hopes of being on the "nice" side once Christmas rolls around, you better be sure you've been nice to SweetPea.  FYI, she can be bribed with pink milk and Madeline cookies from Starbucks.  You still have time!