“So, how do you explain Santa?” I’ve been asked. And until recently my humble reply has been along the lines that — thankfully — I hadn’t needed to yet, but I was adamantly against lying to children. Fair enough, right? Sure. That is until the Girl, now good-and-properly two years old, happily a toddler, and (thanks to the saturation of the Kris Kringle story from a laundry list of sources) became fully convinced that in a couple more “sleeps” Santa is going to squeeze through the chimney of our gas fireplace, eat the cookies she helped her mom bake, and leave behind a new jigsaw puzzle under the tree.

I wanted to explain what exactly goes through the mind of this particular skeptical parent as a fairly acute and ostentatious illness appears in one’s kid. I wanted to explain about the irrational fear response that shoots through one’s brain in the hour approaching midnight, a panicked and percussive toddler in one’s arms, and how easily that fear can take hold. Because there really is nothing fearless in the wilderness of fresh experience.

Until I actually release the new format later this month, read through some of the information about the category/topics, future content, themes, and concepts to find out what I’ve got planned. The trends and the ideas will, of course, stay very much in line with what you’ve been reading on The Skepdad Blog for the last couple years, but the look, feel, and tone will be going in for a major overhaul. And I hope you find it both enjoyable and useful. But for now here is a taste of what’s to come…

I’m a big believer in the idea that we flex our critical thinking muscles by exposing ourselves to new ideas. And I think one of the most basic assumptions most of us both get and don’t get is food. We all know at some level that food is different in different places, but you never really get that until you walk into place where food is sold in its most basic form — a grocery store, market, whatever — when you are away from home.

Catching a glimpse of an old rocket, space suit, shuttle, satellite, or (if you’re in my country) Canada’s remote manipulator arm is not going to — blink — turn a kid into a scientist. But then that’s not the point. If you’re raising kids RIGHT NOW there is one simple fact you already know: those kids will never know a time before humanity reached out to the stars. Big deal, right? Actually… I’d argue it is. And that argument wouldn’t be framed in reasons of nostalgia, historical perspective, or all that wishy-washy ‘hooray for us’ inspirational talk (though all valid in their own way.) I’d argue it is a big deal because while my generation didn’t exactly turn our backs on space, we did refocus much of our gaze on the unlimited realms information made possible by the technology of the so-called space age.