George Clooney reveals Christmas parenting hack to get his twins to behave

George Clooney developed his own parenting hack this holiday season.

The “Ocean’s Eleven” star appeared virtually on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Friday, sharing his scheme to keep his 3-year-old twins, Ella and Alexander, "in line" during Christmastime.

“At three years old, you're just trying to keep your kids in line in general," Clooney confessed, to which Stephen Colbert interjected, “People who say ‘terrible twos’ have never had a 3-year-old."

"So I devised a way to get them to behave during this time,” Clooney continued. “When they’re asleep in the morning — they sleep in the same bedroom — they start to make noises and they're fighting and you can hear the two of them getting at each other, and I stand outside the door and I go ‘Oh, hey, hi Santa!’ and then you hear Santa is there and he’s like ‘Ho ho ho!’”

Clooney then went on with his best impression of Santa, which he seemed to be proud of. He continued, adding, “And I say, ‘What are you doing here Santa?’ and he says, ‘Oh, I’m just making sure that the kids are being good kids.’”

“And you can hear them going, ‘We are Santa! We are!’” he continued. “Then he leaves and they come out and they’re unbelievably well-behaved.”

Colbert then complimented Clooney's Santa, to which Clooney responded, "It can work on your parents, as well."

The 59-year-old actor has plenty of hilarious stories about his kids, whom he shares with his wife, Amal Clooney. Earlier this month, he shared a story on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” about his twins speaking fluent Italian at age three, a language which he and his wife do not speak.

"We did a really dumb thing, which is, they speak fluent Italian. I mean fluent Italian, at three,” he told Kimmel. “But I don't speak Italian, my wife doesn't speak Italian, so we've armed them with a language."

"I'll say, ‘Alright, go back in and clean up your room,’ and they're like, 'Eh, papa stronzo!' and I'm like, 'What?'" he joked in his best Italian accent.

In November, Clooney had a moment that any mom or dad could relate to. During a virtual interview with GQ, the actor’s son made an appearance, interrupting his dad’s Zoom call. The moment wasn’t caught on film, but interviewer Zach Baron described the exchange and it’s just as adorable as you would imagine.

“You've got chocolate on your face. Do you know that?” Clooney asked his son. “What is that? Did you have chocolate?”

Clooney had his son break out his infamous Italian, asking him to say “It’s very hot today.”

“Molto caldo,” the toddler replied.

This story was originally published in 2020.