I will let my kids believe it until they don’t. But I will always instill the magic of Santa: that we can bestow gifts (material and spiritual) on each other, every day, without limitations.

Am I the only adult who didn’t feel ‘betrayed’ by learning that Santa was really my parents? I was delighted with trying to figure out how my parents did it all. Plus it made me feel like a grown up to be in on the secret. When I was in jr high, we were celebrating an early xmas so we could travel to see distant family on the actual holiday. We went out to dinner and then planned on coming home to open presents. Somehow, my parents got all the presents out under the tree while we were out to dinner. To this day (my brother and I currently straddle 40), my parents insist it was Santa and not the neighbors.

We don’t tie Santa to good behavior (I don’t really remember my parents doing this either), and we don’t tell anyone they “have” to believe – in anything. Each child also gets 1 present from Santa, and only 1 present from us; so while we “do” Santa, he’s not really a huge deal around here. I agree that it’s important to ask yourself why you’re deciding to involve yourself and your child in a cultural myth. I also think it’s important to ask yourself why you’re deciding not to, especially when it has the potential to create all kinds of conflict. While one child may certainly grow up feeling betrayed by you “lying” to them about Santa, the next child may grow up feeling betrayed by your refusal to “just be normal”. The few kids at my school whose parents didn’t let them wear Halloween costumes were mocked mercilessly.

It may be herd mentality. I am one of those mothers who do all sorts of things differently from the majority of families that I’m around, and I try to be very aware of the ways this affects my boys. I’m quite content being weird, but that doesn’t mean my children will be.

Curious to know what your opinions are on teaching religion to children. No matter what religion a child is raised in, there will be many, many people in the world who consider that religion just another cultural myth (as I suppose some might see atheism as just a different cultural myth as well).

Hmmmm, much to think about…

Sorry, I don’t have any useful thing to add. I’m going to bookmark this post (maybe, even copy & paste it into a Word doc) so that I know what to say to my boys when the time comes. My 4-year-old still (in the middle of summer) references Christmas and Santa as a timeline. “When Christmas comes, I’m going to be taller.”

Kids’ imaginations aren’t doused by not buying the exploitive myths. If anything, they are opened up to new possibilities–perhaps creating a few myths of their own. My sons didn’t have santa, our tooth fairy drank (and generally forgot), but we had fabulous imaginary friends and wonderful fiction coming out of their heads regularly.

Teaching kids not be be suckered is not about squashing imagination. It’s about empowerment. I don’t think magical beings can hold a candle to that.

I’m not sure why it is that figures such as Santa and the Tooth Fairy are regarded as the last bastion of childhood imagination, or romanticism, etc – our approach is to explain that some families and cultures believe in Santa, but that ultimately the person who places gifts under the tree or in your stomach is a parent, or relative. I don’t feel that doing this diminishes our child’s ability to dream or to be creative. I feel that it’s respectful of her in the sense that it’s not setting her up for an eventual disappointment/hurt/sense of betrayal (and it’s interesting reading everyone else’s recollections of their own revelations in childhood) which – I feel I need to point out – is totally unnecessary. No-one forces you to collude in myth-making of any kind, but if it’s something you do, there is always going to be fallout.

While I’m still not sure I’ve figured out my position on lying (is there ever one objective truth?), for me the issue is more one of – why do it? Perpetuating the story of Santa seems like social pressure, cultural expectation, and largely based in herd mentality. My daughter’s grandparents objected loudly to our approach of talking about the myth of santa (i.e. this is what some people tell their children, but it’s not something we chose to include you in as he doesn’t actually provide you with gifts at Christmastime) on the basis that it would be problematic for other people’s children, which my partner and I found kind of insane.

It’s difficult to distinguish between myth-making/storytelling and lying, at times, and ultimately I’d like to think that my daughter would be empathetic enough not to scream to a believer, ‘he’s not REAL!!!!’, when confronted by one. Ultimately, I think that whether or not you chose to collude in it, and then involve your child unwillingly, it’s sensible to ask why you are doing what you are doing, and what possible benefit it might have for your child, before you go ahead and do it. Hope my post hasn’t caused any offense – am short on time and aware that I may sound a little brusque here! This has been an incredibly thought-provoking discussion, I appreciate it.

She is the most intensely imaginative kid I know. It’s hard sometimes but also wonderful. When her imagination runs wild she comes up with great stories.

Then come times that she needs to be more grounded in reality, and it’s tough. She does not like to let go of her fantasies. We do tell her sometimes that she needs to quit playing when one of her fantasies keeps going at inappropriate times, but that’s not a path to a good mood for her.

If that sounds bitter, well, that’s because it is. I was born credulous, and that was exploited. I figured it out for myself when I was 10. Let me repeat that: 10 years old. I’m not stupid, but I wanted to believe and it’s such a pretty story…. Guess what. Christmas is still special without the lies. The truth of Christmas is not in Santa and gifts. I’ve heard that this metaphor helps a child learn the concept of “faith”. I call bull-sh!t on that.

I’ve gotten flack for what I’m doing with my son, and I’ve had to inform his grandparents, teachers and other people to follow my lead: Santa does NOT exist. I’m teaching him what Santa is used for, but I’m telling him it’s not real. I then tell him of the REAL Santa, which the myth was built around.

There’s so much more to childhood than lying to the children. It’s okay if she wants to believe and she does believe, and it’s okay if she doesn’t. But remember that children find the magical in all things, including the real.