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Subscribe to RSSNorth Pole alert: If there are any Santa-loving kids reading over your shoulder, now would be a good time for them to go play somewhere else!
Oh, how vividly I recall the moment my impossibly sweet mother very flatly revealed the cold, hard truth about Santa.
I was 6 or 7 and had recently watched the cartoon TV special based on that famous old newspaper editorial, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.” The whole idea of grown-ups making a big deal out of insisting Santa was real gave me a hunch that the opposite was more likely true.
So one day after school, I worked up the nerve to ask my mom The Big Question. “Mommy, is Santa real?”
“No,” she replied, without skipping a beat as she continued washing dishes.
The news didn’t upset me, really, though I was a bit surprised she didn’t break it a little more gently. Thirty years later, when I asked her why she hadn’t spun some sentimental yarn about how Santa does exist -- as the spirit of giving that makes the holidays such a wonderful time of year -- she cringed through a smile and said, “I just thought you were ready to know the truth.”
There are no doubt lots of little ones -- ready or not -- are asking their moms and dads The Big Question this year.
In a New York City suburb, it’s thanks to a second-grade teacher who caused a stir when she told her students that Santa wasn’t real and that it is moms and dads who stuff those stockings and buy all those presents. In Chicago, it’s because of a news anchor’s primetime pronouncement that parents should give up the Santa fib as soon as kids can talk. The anchor issued a prompt on-air apology, but it did little to tame the rage of the masses calling for her to be fired.
“What she did was unthinkable,” Terry A. Hoop, of Mankato, Minn., wrote on Facebook. “She has destroyed the hopes and dreams of all the little ones at this magical time of year.”
A few brave souls countered that she’d done the right thing by telling the truth, only to be shouted down by hundreds more insult-laden screeds calling her “self-absorbed” and “heartless.”
And how do level-headed parents react when an adult – whether well-intentioned or clueless – has burst the Santa bubble? A survey of online parenting message boards finds passionate rants about why truth-tellers shun Santa as a big, fat lie or why Santa zealots view non-believers as evil dream-crushers.
Then there as this thoughtful insight about St. Nicholas from a BabyCenter poster:
“He’s a true historical figure who was orphaned young but with a sizable inheritance,” the parent wrote. “It was part of his life’s work to bring gifts and hope to children in need. So in reality good ole Santa is an embellishment of this story with the intent to keep the giving nature of Christmas alive.”
When the time comes for me to read my kids a book about the real St. Nick, I have a feeling they’ll find something magical in the story about the generous old man who spawned the Santa Clause myth. And we’ll still leave out a plate of cookies for “him” on Christmas Eve.
Do your kids still believe in Santa Claus? If not, what age were they when they learned the truth?
Liz Murtaugh Gillespie is a Seattle freelance writer and mother of two whose heart melts guilt-free when her daughter raves about how Santa’s sleigh can fly in outer space.
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My kids still believe. But when they begin to doubt, I might tell them that when they stop believing in Santa, the presents from Santa also stop. I have no problem playing Santa to them.
This is EXACTLY what i told my children. At 20 and 14...we still carry on the "concept" of Santa because it is FUN.
I'm in my 40's and my mom STILL gives me one present marked from Santa. lol It's her way of connecting and reminding me of the joy we shared when I was a child. I know there is no Santa but the memories we shared waiting for Santa still bring a smile to my face every year. Having someone rip away a harmless fantasy is cruel no matter what the intent was.
I tell my son that Santa does exist!! And I get excited with him whenever we see Santa!
Santa is part of the magic of the season. The kids don't question, they may doubt, but they don't voice it. Somethings are better left alone :)
Our 1st is due in June so we've got a bit of time before we we have to have any kind of santa conversation. We've been going back and forth about whether or not we want to do santa. I want to keep it up just because the myth can help buy you a few peaceful moments with list/letter writing or santa guilting some good behavior out of them.
I see nothing wrong with playing along with Santa Claus, but when your kids start asking, GIVE IT UP - at that point you are doing it for you and not them.
Santa is the Best part of Christmas...though hes not the only part...little kids deserve someone to believe in...(along with god but i don't want to get religious). I loved Christmas as a kid because it was fun trying to catch Santa in the act just to get a glimpse of this magical man. It was soo much fun baking cookies with my mom for Santa and putting out that one random carrot because we wanted him to have something good for him too. lol. Who is it hurting to keep the magic alive for the 20th century children of the world. I say LONG LIVE SANTA! We love you and we will fight to keep you around! MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Do you want your kids growing up believing in the truth or believing in what's convenient or what represents a false hope? if the latter, I arrest my case, if the former, then go ahead and tell them that it is just a tradition (that more than half of the kids in the world never believed in in the first place), they will grow up more skeptical and a bit more critical, but overall better human beings. There's no loss, only gains. Then you give them presents because you love them, not because they spent the year behaving thinking someone was watching them 24/7.
Call me a grinch if you like, but I don't lie to my daughter. I've told her that Santa is a wonderful symbol of the season of giving.
We teach our children right and wrong; what is fair and isn't fair. The truth is the real world (aka grown up world) has nothing to do with any of those things. It's all a false hope. Do we tell them from a young age that nothing in life is fair, that not everyone shares, and many people do wrong? No, because we want the best for them. Why not give them the excitement and wonder of Santa then? We give them many false hopes and ideas for their happiness as well as our own, and Santa is no different. That is what childhood is for, the belief of everything good before "life" slaps us into adulthood!
My Children know the true story, but I think that it just makes it that much more fun to be giving to each other. I think they are more zealous about the story than they were when they were believers.
I'm sorry, but this is one of the stupidest things parents can do! It's fine to tell a child Santa is a make believe guy and keep up the pretense of what Santa is and does, as long as they know it's just make believe, like a kid would pretend to be anything from Superman to Jack Sparrow. They KNOW they aren't really, but it's fun to pretend. But to deliberately cause a child to believe somethng you know is not true is plain and simply lying. It may be a relatively harmless lie (depending on what it's relative to of course), but it's a lie nonetheless. Personally, when I discovered the truth, I had a really hard time dealing with trying to figure out why my parents lied to me for so long. I never said anything, but I carried it around inside me long enough to know I will never put my own children through that.
In fact, my Christmases were more fun after I learned the truth, because every year, the last few days before Christmas Day, we tried to figure out where my older sister had hidden all the gifts and if we got lucky and found them, tried to see if we could guess what was in them. That was more fun than anticipating a visit from "Santa". Besides, having grown up in a pretty poor community, even at a young age, I could see the effect of little kids sitting on "Santa's" lap telling him all the things they wanted and then not getting them because Mama and Daddy couldn't afford what Santa promised.
If you think it's all right to tell your children a silly lie, that there's no real harm done and that in fact it's actually a good thing on some level, well you go on believing that; I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. But you'd be wasting your time if you think you can say anything that's going to change mine.
Our children are ages 5, 7, and 15 and when it comes to Santa we use the "don't ask, don't tell" approach. When our oldest was 7 he asked me if I thought he was real. I asked him what he thought, and he said he thought Santa was real. I told him he could believe whatever he wanted. We don't adamantly insist that Santa is real, but we don't say he isn't. Our children only get one gift from Santa, and it's usually something they've already asked us for but forgotten about. We have a great Santa our children see every year and he doesn't specifically ask them what they want, he just tells them their gift is already made and waiting for them, provided they listen to their parents, do their schoolwork, and brush their teeth every night. I don't think there is anything wrong with children believing there is a person who loves children likes surprising them with that one special gift they wanted before the advertising companies brainwashed them into thinking they wanted a hundred other things.