by Amy » December 28th, 2008, 3:39 am
My parents never made a big deal about Santa. My dad's Jewish, so the whole thing was new to him when they had kids. But he loved giving us presents, and the whole fantasy/pretend thing. I stopped believing Santa was "real" by the time I got to school, but I still loved playing along. I think my mom gave us gifts from Santa til I was in high school (my sisters were adults by then).
With our kids, we do lots of pretend about Santa, but I don't go to any lengths to keep them believing--I just can't see lying to answer my kids' honest questions. My son asked me if there is only one Santa. He was confused because there was one at the mall and one at the church Christmas party. I said that the ones he's seen are people dressed up in costume pretending and having fun, just like the actors in the play I took him to see a couple months ago. I knew "those are Santa's helpers" would not satisfy him.
We don't tell the kids to be good or they'll get coal/no gifts. My in-laws label gifts as being from Santa, and we do leave out the cookies and milk. But when the kids open their gifts at home, they are only from mom and dad or each other. The kids don't write letters to Santa asking for stuff, I think that can get very self-centered and materialistic. We had actually never done letters to Santa before this year, since neither of the kids could write. I wasn't planning to this year, either, but Jack found a book with a space in back to write to Santa. I gave him no coaching whatsoever--in fact, I didn't know he'd come across it until he came to me and said, "Mom, look, I wrote a letter to Santa!" His letter said (misspellings eliminated here): "Dear Santa, I love you so much. Love, Jack." Sarah had made just scribbles on her page but she assured me hers was to say, "Dear Jesus, thank you for Santa. Amen." I've taken the kids to see Santa at the mall a couple of times, and when Santa asks them what they want for Christmas, they never know what to say. They just like to talk to Santa, tell him how much they love him and that he's very special.
Anyway, in the end, we just don't want to be in the business of making things up to keep our kids believing--in Santa or in God. If we can't answer a spiritual question, we don't lie about that, either. So ultimately, our kids will choose to believe or not--but it won't be because we tried to force them either way.
Amy
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Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip. ~Will Rogers