I foolishly thought this would be the year when I could make it to Christmas without hearing some ninny (and to my readers, if the shoe fits, you can wear it) complaining about how filling children’s heads with the illusion of Santa and the whole myth behind it is lying to kids and will damage a parent’s credibility irrevocably.
But no, I just had to overhear the same discussion again here at work. How evil parents must be to lie about Santa (and, by extension, the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny and the Great Pumpkin (who doesn’t count because he actually is real)). How they were simply devastated and needed two decades of therapy to get over this falsehood (ok - there’s some embellishment there, but you get the idea of the gnashing and wailing of the speakers). How they would never lie about such a thing and let their kids go through the same devastating process.
In the interest of not getting kicked off of my gig before my due date, I say to the speaker, “If you are so fucking weak that the truth about Santa devastated you, you should never leave your house and never procreate. Your genes will do nothing to forward the human race.”
My children (15 and 12) know not to bad-mouth Santa because I’m a cruel and capricious father who loves to watch their eyes roll like a slot machine when I force them to say to me Santa is real and he is the one who leaves all their presents under the tree. No believing in Santa, no presents. However, I raised my rugrats so they know that it’s a game (of chicken).
We’re not telling the brats about Santa, but I’m not sure if I fit into your “ninny” category or not. (I hope not, 'cause I never complained about other people doing it).
I don’t think it is evil or wrong, or even scarring (unless your kids or fucked up little munchkins already, then it’s a drop in the bucket). We just decided not to play that game.
We’e always played that ‘game’, even now with pretty much everyone grown up past the point of believing in Santa Claus. I look forward to getting my stocking and bag from ‘Santa’, it’s part of the fun of the season. I’ll be very sad when I stop getting my stocking.
I don’t see how it’s scarring in the slightest. If others don’t want to pretend okay, but for me it’s just part of the season. But then I’m a big kid and if I wouldn’t be extremely embarassed about myself I’d go sit on Santa’s lap at the mall…
In A Tree Grows In Brooklyn there’s a wonderful point about Santa. To paraphrase inelegantly, the elderly immigrant grandmother tells the protagonist’s mother that “it’s important for the child to believe in the Kris Kringle until the age of 6ve. To believe, and then not to believe, stretches the feelings. So that when she’s a woman and the world disappoints her, she won’t feel it as much.”