One of my earliest memories is of Christmas eve, sharing a room at a relative's house with my younger siblings. It was some time after midnight, my siblings were asleep. I heard a rustling outside and, knowing santa was purportedly coming, I pretended to sleep and kept one eye very slightly open.
In comes Santa. I can just make out his big fat belly, red suit, white beard, and a big sack. He unloads presents in various places around the room. Then, as he's leaving, the light from the slightly open door catches his face and I realise it's my dad in a Santa outfit. I remember very distinctly feeling crushed and exhilarated at the same time. Santa wasn't real, but I'd found out what grown-ups know.
I planned to confront my dad about it the next day. When I woke up there were sooty bootprints in the fireplace, and my siblings were just so incredibly excited about the whole thing that I didn't have the heart to bring it up.
There are few things outside of fantasy that will create that feeling for a child. Reaching a level of maturity where you get that excited about the real world is a rite of passage. So that's what I'm going to do. I don't care if my kids believe in Christmas or whatever, but if there's some fantasy that enriches their lives without harming them, I'll commit to it until they grow out of it.
Death: Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
Susan: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?
Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
Susan: So we can believe the big ones?
Death: Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing.
Susan: They're not the same at all.
Death: You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged.
Honestly I will probably do as my parents did. I will buy christmas presents, label them "From: Santa", and I'll put them under the tree in the middle of the night, and I will decline to explain how they got there. My children can choose or decline to believe whatever rumors are swirling around the neighborhood.
EDIT: personally I never asked about it because I didn't want to risk stopping the gifts.
That is pretty much what my parents did. I turned out alright. And that is pretty much what we are doing. I would rather my kids blindly believe in Santa than blindly believe in God. They will need to reach an age where they must question both of those things for themselves.
My mother was insistent that my siblings and I knew Santa wasn't real. She was very naive as a child, and when she was 16 someone at school made a joke about kids that believe in Santa. She got in an argument with them, herself believing that Santa was real. Kids were cruel, as they are, and I guess it followed her for the rest of her school days.
My own children are young right now, so I let them enjoy it. I'll just make sure when they get a little older they know who's really buying those presents.
I figure the best thing to do if kids are getting older and still appear to fully believe is to start dropping hints. For example, Santa is usually last to go after things like the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, so you could mention them together. Eventually the kid will figure it out on their own, which is a lot more pleasant than just being told one day.
in the culture i was raised in (indian), santa was treated as a shared joke between parents and kids - there would be some anonymous presents under the tree and our parents would insist that santa had placed them there, and we would groan and try to get them to admit it was them, and everyone would laugh about it. if i had kids i would almost certainly bring them up with a similar system, regardless of where we were living at the time.
I didn't; I've always showed my child the non-sense others believe without cause. Now 20, she has a solid grasp on reality and a firm bullshit detector.
We did (see above). Both of my children (13 and 18) also have a solid grasp on reality and firm bullshit detectors. I suspect belief in Santa, as a child, has little to do with it.
It's good that they turned out OK despite being misled by their parents; you may find that OK because tradition, I find it simply a form of lying, regardless of whether you actively said anything or not.
Letting your kid believe in Santa for a while is far more powerful learning experience than showing it that others believe in this nonsense: not only can't others' beliefs be trusted, your own beliefs can't be either.
There are better ways to teach that than by showing them you're a liar. Telling them Santa is real is IMHO wrong; that's not a debatable point, that's my opinion. I don't support teaching delusions to kids whether it's Santa or God.
"Son, I'm sorry, but Santa isn't real. We just pretend he exists to make Christmas more fun. However, Jesus, the dude who came from the Sky Wizard and rose from the dead and tells us about heaven, we actually celebrate Christmas for him and he's totally real."
The juxtaposition of the Santa and Jesus myths has always baffled me. It is truly a spectacular example of the mental hoops people will go to get past their fear of death: even when they are given an opportunity to question their wider beliefs when the truth about the non-existence of Santa is revealed, they are somehow able to effortlessly compartmentalize the "real" unbelievable stories (like rising from the dead, etc) and the "made up" stories (Santa visits all children on Christmas, elves make the toys, etc.) You couldn't make this up if you tried: we piggyback a widely acknowledged fake myth about a man with superpowers on top of a widely believed myth about a man with superpowers, and "grow out" of the former but will go to the grave with the latter. It's the ultimate troll.
None of us could live with an habitual truth-teller; but thank goodness none of
us has to. An habitual truth-teller is simply an impossible creature; he does
not exist; he never has existed. Of course there are people who think they
never lie, but it is not so--and this ignorance is one of the very things that
shame our so-called civilization. Everybody lies--every day; every hour;
awake; asleep; in his dreams; in his joy; in his mourning; if he keeps his
tongue still, his hands, his feet, his eyes, his attitude, will convey
deception--and purposely. Even in sermons--but that is a platitude.
This reply does not answer the question. It's just another attempt at emotional blackmail, which is all you've done so far in this entire discussion. I guess those ultra-strict deontological ethics only apply when it suits you.
I let them figure it out themselves. "Hmm, if Santa is real, why don't we hear the bells?" Same for the Tooth Fairy. "Wait... fairies aren't real." "OK, so how does the money get there?" "Well... I guess you put it there." "Your words."
I try hard to never explicitly lie to my kids. Sometimes I have to pad my words. Like to answer "Are you going to die today?" Well, maybe, but a rather low probability. That scares them a bit, so sometimes I have to reassuringly tell them no. I feel bad about not being totally truthful, but I think the confidence and security for them is worth a loose interpretation.
