Ryan Reynolds Hilariously Flubs Answer To Daughter's Santa Question

Ryan Reynolds struggles to keep up the Santa lie too, parents

Christmas is over, which means we can (hopefully?) stop fielding questions about the big guy in red until we dust off our stupid Elves again next year. That’s a good thing, because trying to come up with answers to our kids’ most pressing questions about Santa can be a serious brain workout.

Even celebrity parents find themselves struggling to keep up the ruse, as Ryan Reynolds proves in a hilarious Instagram post.

Reynolds is an adorable (and insanely funny) famous father, but his little girls with wife Blake Lively have no idea their dad is Deadpool. To Ines and James, he’s just the guy who soothes their Christmas concerns. But sometimes, even he comes up a little dry when thrown a holiday curveball by his kid.

In a photo he shared the day after Christmas, Reynolds recounts a conversation with one of his daughters, presumably James since Ines is barely old enough to walk, and it will sound familiar to anyone attempting to push the Santa agenda on their inquisitive little ones.

Daughter: Santa comes down the chimney?

Me: Yup.

Daughter: You left the fire burning all night.

Me: Yup. (Silence. Slight breeze. A crow circles in the distance.)

Once you’ve recovered from lol-crying, understand that this man is keeping it so real by admitting his lack of smoothness under kiddie questioning. I’ve quelled every Santa query imaginable in my decade as a mom, often just as poorly as Reynolds, and it’s striking to me how much we must love these little goobers to jump through hoops to keep the magic going. Why yes, young James. There was a fire lit. Somehow, Christmas came anyway, so chew on that.

I kid, I kid. I imagine Reynolds was very kind and gentle as he accidentally forced his small child to picture Santa going up in flames. That’s just what good parents do.

When my son was little, he got very hung up on the fact that we have a wood-burning stove and not an actual fireplace. He was twisting his toddler mind into all sorts of pretzels trying to figure out how a big dude with a giant sack of presents could fit down that skinny pipe and emerge from the small stove door unscathed. So that’s why my husband and I told him Santa has a magic key and just comes right the fuck in through the front door.

We left out the “fuck” part. But we were definitely thinking it. It’s a lot of work lying for several years in hopes of making things fun for our kids.

Though the mental gymnastics can be a real pain, there’s something to be said for wanting to keep the holiday whimsy going for as long as possible, and that’s why we parents do all we can to make it happen. But sometimes, we’re just too tired to make up more bullshit and the kids will have to deal with it. We appreciate Reynolds keeping it real AF so the rest of us don’t feel so alone in our merrymaking laziness.