what to do about lying about "Santa"

[MommyHawk]

Ok, I just have an issue with the whole Santa thing. I hate lying to my DC, but then again they seem to enjoy the 'magic' of it all...so what do you do about "Santa"? My sister was so miserable when she found out that Santa, the easter bunny, tooth fair, and all those were not real. She actually believed they were, and she was absolutely depressed when she found out the truth. I guess I always knew and just played along. Going to sit on some strange guy's lap and hope that he brings something in the middle of the night..and what about kids who don't get anything.... DH says that Santa should 'bring' things that are either really special, hard to find, or handmade and not wrapped so it looks like someone made it (like elves I guess) I just have an issue with the lying part. Am I alone with this?

[hollytheteacher]

Originally Posted by MommyHawk

Ok, I just have an issue with the whole Santa thing. I hate lying to my DC, but then again they seem to enjoy the 'magic' of it all...so what do you do about "Santa"? My sister was so miserable when she found out that Santa, the easter bunny, tooth fair, and all those were not real. She actually believed they were, and she was absolutely depressed when she found out the truth. I guess I always knew and just played along. Going to sit on some strange guy's lap and hope that he brings something in the middle of the night..and what about kids who don't get anything.... DH says that Santa should 'bring' things that are either really special, hard to find, or handmade and not wrapped so it looks like someone made it (like elves I guess) I just have an issue with the lying part. Am I alone with this?

I don't consider it a lie. It IS about the magic. So my parents ended up being Santa...no less "real" for me.

[lisalou]

I think if you concentrate on what Santa, et al symbolize rather than making them out to be concrete figures you teach valuable lessons about giving, you preserve the magic and you lessen the disappointment when your kids find out they're not concrete beings but a spirit that is in all of us.

[philomom]

To the OP, I was like your sister, I never really got over the fact that my parents had strung out these lies until I was 9 years old.

Maybe you could tell him from the start that its all pretend?

I didn't feel the need to do santa with my own kids. It doesn't seem to have hurt them.

[g&a]

I can't stand the deception, either.
I make my husband do the lying. If he wants to keep up the game, he has to do the work. I think kids would be just fine knowing it's not true.

Especially the "be a good little girl and santa will bring you presents" thing. It drives me up the wall. First of all, be the person you are to be, if others percieve that to be good or not. Your behaviour should affect your beliefs, not wanting to please someone else.
Secondly, yes, lets associate behaviour with stuff - materialism is fantastic.

Sorry to be off topic. But that always comes up with the santa thing.

g.

[BunnySlippers]

I told my dd that santa was not a real person. He and his family were something we imagined about once a year. She said she wants to believe he is real, which fine by me. I don't lie to her and talk about him as if he was real. She does most of the talking and imagining and I just answer non-commitantly.

I don't like the whole knows when you are sleeping, knows when you are awake, bad/good, and sneaks into your house.
I have told daughter NO ONE watches her while sleeping(aside from her mother), we don't do good or bad, she gets gifts from me and the family because it is fun to give and make people happy.
She seems satisfied with all this and the holiday is still exciting and magical.
We go to a tree farm and cut our own tree, we love to decorate, bake, sing, listen to music, smell the good smells. There is way more to christmas than just santa and presents.

I would like to get a good St. Nicolas book, as I have heard santa is derived from that. That could give you a starting point as to the truth of this wacky and wonderful holiday.

[Lingmom]

When asked about Santa, I just say that it's a mystery and I don't know and then I ask my daughter what she thinks. I have the same policy for angels, easter bunnies and fairies.

If she says "I don't think Santa is real." I mention that if he's not real, then he can't bring presents... and I smile and wink. She knows. I know. But it's fun to pretend.

[claras_mom]

It's not about lying, but about pretending. Kids get that. But my siblings and I had a different experience of the whole thing. At the point where we were all willing to admit to each other that we knew it was the parents filling stockings, and not the guy in the red suit, instead of being all depressed about it, we started filling our parents' stockings.

Ho, ho, ho! Now that was some Christmas, the first one that Santa visited the parents!

But in our family, Santa left one "special" unwrapped gift and filled stockings. Everything else was from real people.

[onlyzombiecat]

I don't consider it a lie to pretend about Santa. I don't agree with taking the Santa story so far that you make footprints and fake a bunch of evidence to make your child believe it is real. That gets kind of creepy IMO.

I leave it up to my dd's imagination mostly. My dd is 7 now and I have asked her if she thinks Santa is real. She says he is. We'll go along with it as long as she wants to.
We've never put her on anyone's lap. We've never told her she will only get gifts if she is good. In our house Santa brings 1 gift and fills the stockings. The package is unsigned. Everything else is from us. I don't think she will get depressed when she decides it is us filling the stockings.

[peachweenie]

I know what you mean about "lying" or "pretending". I haven't done the Santa thing with my child. I want my child to know that I will tell him the truth about anything. I want him to trust me absolutely whether it be Santa, the tooth fairy, drugs, sex, etc. etc. That kind of trust between my child and I is important to me as a parent. To me there's enough magical wonder in the seasons, nature, the love of your family, friends and relatives that you don't have to pretend about some strange guy coming to your house once a year to deliver presents.

[misseks]

We like to pretend and make believe. We make believe that the chairs are a bus or a train and that the blanket is a castle and that Santa (a funny dressed up guy at the mall) brings presents. It's fun for grown up and kids and it is a special Christmas-time pretend.

[pigpokey]

I tell my kids "you know Santa is a myth" periodically, but they don't seem interested in finding out what Myth means. Or perhaps they will never tell me when they know.

[attachedmamaof3]

Our kids know Santa's not real. We read about St. Nick and how the story of Santa started, but it's still really fun for us to pretend. They still get a little gift from "Santa" and they have fun writing lists, etc. You can still have the "magic" and not the deception/lying. (and like a PP said, not the "good" threats or creepy footprints). OH and DS#1 loves to bake cookies for the reindeer and then wake up and eat them all....hhaaa he thinks we don't know!

[reader18]

I think the people i've known who have had the most "damage" from their parents lying to them about Santa didn't occur from the initial fun, pretending about Santa when they were preschool age or a little order, but occured once they found out the truth when they were 8, 9, 10 or older. Once they questioned their parents and their parents adamently stated that Santa was real, when they knew enough to know it couldn't really be real. Especially once most kids know it's just pretend it can be embarrassing to be the last kid to find out the truth. One friend's mother was just trying to protect it for her little brother and it really hurt my friend that at 10 years old her mom continued to lie to her and didn't feel she could trust her with the truth. I think at 10 years old she could have had a lot of fun helping her mom with the stockings and such.

That said, my parents taught me that Santa was just for fun! And we had a lot of fun with it. We still left out cookies and milk for Santa and my dad woke us up on Christmas morning by shaking jingle bells. Of course, we knew my parents filled the stockings and ate the cookies and rang the bells, but it was still magical and fun! And I think that's the point.

[nonconformnmom]

We don't actively lie to our kids about Santa. We let them believe what they want to believe. They take the lead and we follow, allowing the 'magic' to happen to the degree that they believe it will.

We don't emphasize Santa at all - no books about it, no 'be good because Santa is watching', no letters or fake phone calls to Santa.

I see it as just a way of allowing our kids to experience fantasy and magic that is only possible while they're young.

[MommyHawk]

Originally Posted by g&a

Your behavior should affect your beliefs, not wanting to please someone else.
Secondly, yes, lets associate behavior with stuff - materialism is fantastic.

:

[Juvysen]

We plan to just not really talk about santa. someday our kids will hear about him (probably from their cousins) and at that time we'll explain that santa is a fun holiday custom and if they like, we can pretend that there's a santa too. That way, I feel like it's their decision, but they understand that it's something that we pretend and I'll work in not to talk about that we're playing that so they don't ruin it for other people.

[hubris]

There are many parents who agree with your feelings about lying to children. And IMO, if a parent tells a child that something is a fact, and the parent knows it isn't a fact, and the child isn't old enough to understand this and actively participate in the pretend play, then yes, it's lying, de facto.

How each parent feels about telling a lie to a child is really up to them. You've said you dont' feel right about it. So don't do it! There are a TON of threads around here - search the parenting forums for "Santa" in thread titles - that contain many families' Christmas traditions. There is no one right way of celebrating "magic". Lots of families engage in Santa pretend play without telling the kids Santa is real. Many of those families find nonmaterialistic ways of enjoying the Santa myth. And many families, like mine, just opt out of pretending about Santa - but lack for nothing - we have much-anticipated traditions and childhood wonder and all of that good stuff.

Find what feels consistent with your beliefs and respectful of your children, and do that.

[Juvysen]

OH... I forgot to say... my grampa apparently figured it out on his own, but was the last to stop "believing" in santa out of his 4 siblings because at christmas they got two presents, one from their parents and one from santa, but when they stopped believing, they only got the one from their parents, and not the one from santa... Apparently my grampa was smart enough to make sure his parents knew he "believed" so he kept on getting the extra gifts... hehehehehehe

[wonderwahine]

to me its not a lie, santa is real (allthough hes dead), and we are all his helpers.