Babble

Do you guys do Santa? We do, because one of my best Christmas holidays is hiding in a closet with my sisters and brother, trying soooo hard to wait up and catch Santa in the act.

But I know a mom who says that when she found out Santa wasn't real that it totally damaged her trust in her parents, and that she felt completely betrayed. So now while they do a tree and all, they don't do Santa - and also because of comercialism reasons.

Then of course there are the religious reasons, which all make a lot of sense to me, but we aren't religous at all.

 Anyway we love Santa. Though I admit a small part of me feels a bit grumpy that we won't get the credit for their big gift (a wagon to share) which will be from Santa.
 

I don't recall ever really believing in Santa. I'm sure I must have. Clearly finding out didn't make much of an impression on me.

For me, Santa is no different from any of the story books we read to our daughter. Velveteen rabbits don't come to life, but I don't expect it to destroy her trust in me to read her a story about it. It would make me sad for my daughter to have a childhood without imaginary characters.

That said, I don't have anything particularly invested in Santa. If it makes Christmas more fun for her, that's great. If not, I'll be relieved to not have to watch what I say around Christmas time.

On the other hand, we were really well behaved in the month of December, so maybe our parents were onto something with the Santa leverage. ;-)

 

Santa is magic and Christmas is all about magic. And Santa can also be a lesson in faith. It's really quite simple: We tell our children that Santa is real and comes as long as children really, truley BELIEVE. If their faith in Santa is shaken, if they start to doubt; Santa sends a letter to their parents and asks them to take over for him so her can service the true believers. In the end, many kids have parents that have to pretend to be Santa because sadly many kids stop believing. This is what we will tell our children. The choice to believe or doubt will be up to them. And if finding out Santa "isn't real" damages the trust you have in your parents irrepairably, and makes you deny your own children their possible joy in the tradition of Christmas--you have some serious issues that don't start and end with December 25.

I think the Santa Question is less than black-and-white.  We are not telling the Lads that the Big Dude is real, but we are not leaving him out of the holiday, either.  They love Curious George, Dora, etc., without having to believe these characters actually exist.  If they want to believe in the whole mythos, that's cool with me, but we're not pushing it one way or another; we're just having a holiday.

 

I'm sure I believed in Santa at some point, but then I noticed that his handwriting was suspiciously similar to my mom's.  Plus, I grew up in a trailer with wafer-thin walls and could hear them wrapping presents on Christmas Eve.  Since that is one of my earliest memories, I suppose I knew Santa was a sham early on. 

I have a younger brother and I know my mom threatened me with death if I told him Santa wasn't real.  Consequently, I think he believed in Santa until he was about 10.

Now I'm Jewish and we do Hanukkah so we don't have Santa.  I've dodged that particular bullet!

I know that at one point in my childhood I believed in Santa. But since I have an older sister, that myth was debunked pretty early on. In fact, one of my earliest memories was going through the Toys'R'Us catalogue with my mother and writing a wish list for Santa (even though I knew Santa was really mama and papa.)

We don't do Santa with our son, he seems a bit young to start telling him about Santa and to be perfectly frank, it might scare him if he thinks a fat old guy with a beard might try to sneak into our apartment.

 

I didn't think much about Santa until buying gifts this year, and after talking it over with my husband, we decided we'd go ahead and tell him that Santa is real.

Why?  Because we both had wonderful memories of the Santa magic.  We used to leave carrots for the reindeer and cookies for Santa--and my parents always made sure that they made hoofprints and partially ate the offerings.  A few years, my dad even made "sleigh tracks" on the roof next to the chimney.  When I found out about Santa, I helped out my parents a little by playing Santa, myself--I got to be the one who brought down the gifts and put them out by the tree.

There was even something magical about that--there I was, helping carry along a tradition that was pure delight to my younger sisters.  

I know there's a problem with commericalism, but I think it's also a time to teach moderation--you can use it as a learning experience and have fun at the same time.