Get Robin Robinson to tell them.
A simple basic answer from someone who thinks Santa Claus is a fun, harmless tradition:
As soon as a kid is old enough to ask questions on ANY topic, he/she is old enough to hear an honest answer. If “Virginia” believed in Santa Claus with all her heart at age 8, I think you’d have to be a jerk to butt in and tell her, “It’s all bogus.”
But 8 is about the age when most kids start to figure out the whole thing is impossible. If Virginia is starting to ask, “Is this real,” she’s old enough to be told, “No, it’s just a fun game we play at Christmas time.”
For years I lived by the rule that I would keep silent unless a child specifically asked me about Santa and then when asked I would tell the truth. Then one day I slipped up. I was watching two young children doing their homework, one of them studying the Solar System. He said something about Mars being cold and I agreed and said something about how even the north pole is a relatively nice climate compared to Mars and nobody lives at the north pole so just think how hard it would be to try to live on Mars. Then the younger child piped up “SANTA Claus lives at the north pole!”. oops. now what.
I backpedaled and said something like “umm I meant nobody like you and me lives at the north pole”, then got the hell out of there before I made his parents angry.
This. A co-worker was worried about having to tell her 7 year old <eventually> that Santa doesn’t exist as a person. I thought about it, and realized that none of us four kids ever had that ‘revelation’. My dad always presented the season as a time of Christmas spirit, and embodying that spirit on earth, as humans, as often as possible. And I don’t remember ever dropping off that existential cliff; I wonder if it’s worth a vote here, to find out how many people were disappointed as kids when they ‘found out’?
This, too. I actually asked my mom last week if any of us had to be told there was no Santa, and she said nope. The times my folks got ‘busted’ with presents or whatnot, they just said they were ‘Santa’s helpers’, and that was that.
I remember once sneaking my dad’s keys on Christmas Eve, and waking up in the middle of the night to shake the keys going downstairs to my brothers’ room, to make them think Santa was here…they didn’t fall for it. 
We all ogled the presents for a while and then went back to bed until a more reasonable time, lol.
My wife received the following e-mail from her 9-year-old nephew last week:
We both busted a gut laughing at that. We know he was getting skeptical the past couple of years, so I’m sure there was no big traumatic epiphany here. He decided to yank our chains a bit in retaliation for yanking his.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
But…do we reeeeaaally want to clog our streets with a fat old man, a sled, and some truly disgusting reindeer? Whose supposed to clean up after those reindeer anyway, Virginia? Its certainly not in my Sanitation Dept budget.
We’re way over budget now, after bull-dozing all those disturbing radicals away from our pristine and clean center of commerce, Wall Street. And your Daddy doesn’t want to pay anymore taxes… so… I’m afraid that that’s that.
Which is why I’m taking this opportunity to roll out the Next phase of my “Quality of Life” initiative. Starting this December, NYC will officially begin phasing out Santa Claus. Don’t get me wrong, you’re still welcome to shop at MACYs.
We haven’t made children walking in public illegal yet, of course. Then again, if I’m elected to another term, I reserve the right to revisit the subject.
Your Benevolent Ruler,
High Lord Mayor Bloomberg
He’s going to drown Virginia? That even beats superdickery into a cocked hat. :eek:
Of course, when you google “Is there a Santa Claus?” the first hit is – an 1897 editorial addressed to Virginia O’Hanlon in the New York Sun.
When I was in 2nd grade, we all wrote letters to Santa Claus that were going to be published in some local paper or something. All of them, not just randomly selected ones.
So anyway, being the smart-ass second grader and skeptic that I was, I wrote in my letter to Santa that I knew he wasn’t real, that it was Mom and Dad who put the presents under the tree and drank the milk and ate the cookies. I was so proud of myself for having figured it all out, AND that it was getting published in the paper! yay!
Well when my mom and dad read my little letter, they were NONE too pleased. I remember I got sent to bed that Christmas eve being told that what I did was wrong and insensitive. My dad read to me the other letters, about kids asking for toys and things for their family, and how selfish it was of me to write what I had written.
I felt genuinely sad and apologized and things were better on Christmas day, but my family would NOT let me live it down for a while.
“Is there a Santa Claus?” That’s one question.
“Is there a Santa Claus that delivers presents?” That’s another question entirely.
I remember, decades ago, seeing someone explain why Santa doesn’t give expensive presents to poor kids by saying, “Santa’s just the delivery man - we pay him for the presents.”
“But why bring them presents, when Santa will do?”
“It’s a clause in their contract: if we don’t, they can sue!” - Animaniacs
I wonder how many kids were put onto the path of believing the government is Santa Claus when the first one didn’t work out so well.
When our son was in 6th grade, as Christmas approached he would mention Santa here and there.
“Santa will bring me one”, and so on.
My wife corners me and says “you can’t let him go around middle school telling kids that he still believes in Santa. They’lll laugh at him and tease him. Go tell him.”
We argued back and forth, even both speculating that he knows, but is just going along, playing his part. We came to the conclusion that he must already know, so we’re not really ruining anything.
And so at bedtime that night, I laid it all out as gently as I could. Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny - the works. And as he looked at me telling him these things, tears started rolling down his face. He finally hung his head and just cried, and I’ve never wanted to walk into an airplane propeller more than I did at that moment.
My cowardly advice? Don’t be the one to reach out and crush your child’s dreams and hopes and happiness. I’ve never felt more shitty in all my life!
Let the older kids spill the beans and you take the rap for being Santa without actually being the hit-man!
How horrible for you! I would have possibly gone the seppuku route after that!
By the time, I decided to stop having Santa deliver, my son was about to decide on his own there was no Santa, he fussed a little but since he got the same kinds of things, I think the leap wasn’t to hard.
I figured it out when I decided Santa couldn’t possibly write my name in my Mother’s handwriting.