Her father and I have not done the Santa Claus thing. We’ve talked about how Santa was this dude that lived a long time ago and did some some goods things to help people. That now people want to pretend that he is still alive because it’s fun and because it helps to inspire other people to help people that are less fortunate. (Which is part of the reason why we have told her he isn’t real - to try and get the “real” meaning of Christmas.)
Today when I picked her up from school she told me that she had decided that Santa is real. Then she listed three reasons:
[ul]1. Her grandmother had received a gift that said “To: Grandma, From: Santa Claus” .
She hears jingle bells every Christmas Eve. Her imagination is working way overtime here.
When she goes to bed on Christmas Eve there are no presents under the tree, but when she gets up they are there, and how do the presents get there if I’m [Mom] asleep?[/ul]
I see nothing wrong in bringing a little magic and wonder into the world, at least once a year.
The rule around our house is that if you no longer believe in Santa, Santa will stop leaving you presents. Everyone in our house, parents and teenagers included, believes in Santa. So far it has not seemed to have caused any long term harm.
You told her the truth, which is fine. If she’s a kid, and having heard the truth, still chooses to believe the fairy tale, that’s her prerogative. When The Santa Clause came out, the VunderKind was 5 or 6. At the end of the movie, I told him I’m really Santa. He didn’t give up on the guy in the red suit until he was 8, and then he understood what I was really telling him.
When I was growing up, and with my kid, this was also the rule. However, it didn’t mean a reduction in the number of presents; just how they were labeled.
A friend’s child asked me if I believed in Santa Claus. Of course I do! She said one of the kids at school said there wasn’t a Santa and everything came from her Mom. “Santa’s real” she said, “Mom never lets me have chocolate, but Santa always gives me a lot!!”
If it were entirely up to me, I would stick a present under the tree from Santa. Not because I really want her to believe in him but I hate to have to tell her she’s wrong about something she’s obviously put a lot of thought into. However, once she mentions that Santa is real to her grandma and father both of them will tell her it’s not true and I’d rather explain to her gently why its not true than to have them do it. They love her dearly of course, but tend to be a little patronizing.
It’s funny that she still thinks that when she goes to bed everything else stops. I don’t know how to tell her that I put the presents under the tree after she goes to bed so she can be surprised and still have her be surprised in the morning.
But of course Santa is real. Otherwise, where did the presents come from? Who is the guy in the mall in the red suit? What is NORAD tracking?
Just because there is not a single man who you can point to and say “that person is the one and only Santa” does not mean that Santa does not exist at all. “Santa Claus” is just a name that I apply to the general concept of holiday magic. I see nothing wrong with putting a present under the tree from Santa. It doesn’t matter if Santa had a little help from you. If the present came from Santa, then he is as real as your love for your daughter.
Let them be kids for as long as you can. They grow up way too fast.