To Santa Claus or Not to Santa Claus

Great Debates
1

Is it right to have your kids believe in Santa Claus?

I personally think it is. I still love Christmas, but damn it was fun believing in the right jolly old elf. Sitting on the lap, making up the wish list, leaving out the milk and cookies, watching the weatherman do that dorky “Santa watch” thing X-mas eve, your eyes opening at the slightest sound from the living room in the night… love all of it. As the column on the front page of the site says, there’s just something so magical about it that makes a kid so happy, and we don’t even take credit for it. How could you deprive someone of that?

Of course, there is the argument that the whole Santa thing amounts to lying to your own children, makes them value material possessions even more than they already do, and teaches them that Christianity is better than other religions. (Though one of my Jewish friends did refer once to a Hannuklaus.) I respect this argument, but don’t agree with it. Thoughts?

2

…about this very issue. I have no idea what to do when I finally decide to bless the world with my offspring. :slight_smile:

I can appreciate the wonder of it all - kids have fertile imaginations and live lives of wonderment anyway - or at least that’s what I recall when I think back to the days of my youth. But, then again, you are lying to your children, which I find distasteful… I didn’t even shake off the Christian myth “officially” until I was about 22… so where does this believing in the unbelievable come into play as something beneficial?

Perhaps I will do it - perhaps not - but if I do, perhaps I will also leave enough “evidence” around for my kids to figure it out on their own, to approach me for a confirmation of their doubts, and then be pleased that somehow I raised rational children in this world. :slight_smile:

3

For me, it was more or less a good thing. It was fun to believe in Santa Claus when I was little, and then when I realized that he wasn’t going to come down my chimney, it didn’t disappoint me; it made me feel intellectual and mature (and sort of superior to my parents’ foolishness, actually).

I figure it can’t be that terrible for them. Children raised by smart cookies generally turn out to be smart cookies.

4

Just speaking for myself, as a child I was told about Santa and the tooth fairy and Easter bunny and believed in the magic. Eventually I stopped believing and the magic went away. I never once believed that my Mother had lied to me. I don’t know what I’d call it, but it wasn’t lying.

[sub]I think I still miss the magic.[/sub]

5

Personally, I’m against the whole idea of Santa Claus. He is a commercialized bastardization of St. Nicholas.

If I ever have kids ([biological clock] tick, tick, tick, tick… [/biological clock]) I’m not going to tell them about Santa Claus. I will, however, make a big deal out of St. Nicholas Day (December 6), tell them the story of the real St. Nick, give them presents, shoeful of candy, etc.

Christmas, no presents. I don’t want them to associate Jesus’ birthday (ok, pagans, lay off. I know already…) with getting stuff. Decorations, festiveness, joy, going to church. Purely a sacred day.

BTW, I wasn’t traumatized by finding out their isn’t really a Santa Claus. I just sort of outgrew the belief, and actually pretended to believe for a couple of years after the truth dawned on me…

6

An especially relevant topic for me this year, since my youngest is coming to terms with the non-existance of Santa this year.

First of all, there is no decision to make with regards to whether your kid will get the Santa indoctrination. Unless you very carefully monitor their TV use, Santa is ubiquitous enough that they are going to have to deal with the message. Heck, Santa is in the mall, on the streetcorner, in 90% of the sitcoms, in carols, on TV and radio commercials, and on 942,736,387,388,655,901 different decorations. (I counted.) So the choice seems to be one of “Shall I play along with this or not?” since the message is going to be received regardless.

IMHO, there is a price to be paid for the belief in Santa, but it is a small one. My youngest is 2 months shy of turning 7, and this year began to raise serious doubts about the whole Santa mythos. When asked point blank i the face of her doubts about whether reindeer could really fly, Santa could really live at the North Pole, and so forth, we had to tell her that there was indeed no Santa. Needless to say, she was disappointed, and a little angry. She does not really understand why adults lie to little kids about Santa, and it’s hard to articulate. In the end though, her Christmas was not ruined, nor her little heart shattered. By the time she was ready to hear that Santa wasn’t real, she was old enough to handle the idea, which is IMHO the way the deck is usually going to stack. The thing we were worried about was that she was going to go to school and inform all her friends about Santa’s nonexistence, which really ought to be the purview of the parents.

There’s definitely a tradeoff involved, but in the end I think it’s worth it. Small children believe in magic naturally, even without fairy tales being spoon-fed to them by adults, which any reading of Piaget or even casual observation will reveal. Kids’ play and entertainment are geared toward magical thinking in such a way that the world they live in truly is wondrous in ways we poor adults can appreciate only vicariously. The Santa mythos is one that manages to capitalize on this type of thinking in a shared way, and while disillusionment will be visited on them throughout their lives, the awe and wonder of a Santa visitation is available only for a few brief years. Let them have their Christmas magic while they can I say. The cost is small and the benefits are priceless.

7

good one, Ptahlis

I’m currently considering this Great Debate in regards to my baby. Right now, it seems like my family is going to push through the Santa tradition unless I decide to crumble that particular Christmas cookie. I’ll probably feel a bit guilty with The Lie, but perhaps I can keep it the focus more on the symbolism than the man, so it’s not so heart breaking to learn the truth.

For me, learning the truth was a little sad, but not that bad overall. Christmas was still fun after that.

8

Maybe Santa Claus could be a good object lesson. “Mommy, why do people believe in God?” “Well, Little Pod, remember when you believed in Santa Claus?” That’s a creepy bit of social engineering, don’t you think?

On the whole, I don’t think believing in Santa Claus is necessarily harmful for children (it didn’t seem to leave any lasting scars on me) but I don’t think I would feel good about conspiring with society to trick them into believing something that isn’t true. And getting kids to behave by telling them that Santa doesn’t give presents to “naughty” children seems deeply sick to me.

I don’t see why children can’t enjoy the Santa Claus mythos without having to believe it. I loved the story of the Grinch, but I didn’t for a minute believe the Grinch was real.

9

My daughter is three, and this was the first year that she was old enough to believe in Santa Claus. So we did the whole thing - put out milk and cookies, carrots outside for the reindeer, etc. Then when she went to bed, we took a bite out of the cookie and the carrots.

It was a heck of a lot of fun for all of us. I imagine it will make Christmas a little more magical for a few years, and she’ll finally, and slowly, come to realize that Santa isn’t real. Her friends will mention it at school, she’ll see jokes on TV, etc. But I don’t think it’ll bug her, or make her distrust us in any way, because it’s a society-wide fib. It’s just part of growing up. And maybe it’ll make her a bit more skeptical in the future when people try to spin stories for her, which is a good thing.

But I don’t really care about any trivial side effects later on - childhood is precious, and the whole Santa myth makes it that much more special for them.

10

SANTA IS A NAZI!

Yes, it’s true. The idea is to lie to your kids until they figure out or you tell them. This eventually teaches your kids that it’s okay to lie to keep inferiors in line, i.e. fascism. Also, Santa is anti-Semitic in that he doesn’t give presents to Jews or for that matter any member of any other religion. So unless you’re a Hitler/Mussolini admirer, don’t do the whole Santa thing!!!

11

Sam, once again I find myself agreeing with you.

We never went to any lengths to brainwash our kids to believe in Santa, but it sure was fun going along with it. And we noticed no ill effects on them when they came to realize that mommy and daddy were Santa. Nor do I consider THAT to be the reason I am presentlyy so hopelessly twisted.

IMO, if you don’t do Santa with your kids, you are missing out on some fun and magic. Putting out milk and cookies. Sitting on Santa’s lap. Writing letters for Santa. Entertaining wonderfully creative debate on how it actually works. The look of wonder on Christmas morn when Santa actually came. Plus a good disciplinary tool when November-December roll around!

I was recently discussing this sort of thing with a friend of mine. He is Methodist, has 2 kids aged 4 and 1. He said his 4 year old believes in Santa, but doesn’t like him because he doesn’t come to their house. That kind of surprised me. My friend simply said, “We never brought Santa up one way or the other.” I thought it was a little naive on my friend’s part. On another occasion, the kid’s grandarents asked if Santa was coming that night, and the kid responded, “Nope, my daddy’s gonna build a fire in the fireplace.” I guess he is uncomfortable with the ide of someone coming into his house when he was asleep. I mention this merely to suggest that choosing to simply let the kid’s response develop without direction one way or the other has implications.

And it always cracks me up when deists refer to belief in Santa as “the BIG LIE”!

Oh yeah, the the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy come to our house. And every March 17th our kids wake up to find leprechauns turned over some furnniture, peed green in the toilets, and caused other mischief. Damn, I’m scarring those poor kids for life. But we are all having fun during the abuse!

12

My oldest is on the cusp of not believing in Santa. And I’m already lamenting losing that magical part of their youth…putting out magic reindeer food, writing letters, getting up in the middle of the night to put the presents under the tree and eat the milk and cookies…

::sniff::

Lying to your kids? Pshaw. You’re feeding a fertile imagination and letting them experience a little emotion called joy.