Santa

[thebigcheese]

So I was just looking at this article: http://www.wikihow.com/Raise-Children-N ... anta-Claus

I think it's an intriguing idea. Does anyone actually do that? Do you think it would be helpful (my parents were honest with me!) or harmful (I never got to have the Santa experience!) to a kid's childhood experience?

[bobtheenchantedone]

So I was just looking at this article: http://www.wikihow.com/Raise-Children-N ... anta-Claus

I think it's an intriguing idea. Does anyone actually do that? Do you think it would be helpful (my parents were honest with me!) or harmful (I never got to have the Santa experience!) to a kid's childhood experience?

Marduk and I have actually discussed this a lot. He does not think children should believe in Santa Claus, or even think about that aspect of Christmas at all.

I don't know, myself. I have only gone so far as to decide that I will not teach my children about Santa. I don't know what I will say to them when they start asking me who this jolly guy in all the pictures and songs is, and why they don't know about him.

I used to think differently on the matter, but Duckie is very persuasive and makes a lot of good points. You can be sure he will descend on this topic when he gets home from work.

[Dead Cat]

We believed in Santa growing up. We were told that the Santas in stores and such were "Santa's helpers," and that my grandpa was one himself. I don't think we weren't any less for it when we "found out." I think Christmas would be less magical without Santa, certainly.

A quick related anecdote:
This past Christmas, my family came to Utah and we ate at one of my mom's cousin's house with a bunch of other relatives. There were a bunch of kids there, but when Santa showed up, I think the adults acted more excited about it than the kids. I kid you not, the parents were screaming like Buddy the Elf in Elf. I think it made the experience all the more special for the kids when the parents made such a big deal out of all of it, but it's possible that it was a bit much in this instance.

[C is for]

I don't feel like my childhood was deprived because I never believed in Santa. Christmas was still plenty fun for me, and maybe I've had less trouble focusing on the true meaning of Christmas? I don't know. Now I'm sounding like a TV special.

But since I didn't grow up ever believing in Santa, I don't really get the point. Why lie to your children and then say "ha ha guess what Santa's not real"?

I'm interested to see what Marduk says.

[thebigcheese]

When you think about it, it's kind of funny that we (as a culture) are so elaborate about the whole Santa bit. It's one thing to have a family tradition, but it's entirely another thing to have an elaborate deception for a tradition. We set out food for him, we write letters to him, we use him as an excuse to encourage good behavior, we sing songs about him, we send the kids to bed before the appointed hour, we are very careful to ensure that they don't find out, we try to make amends when other kids spill the beans, and we really just try to drag it out as long as possible. My niece is 9, and my sister is still trying to milk it for all it's worth -- "if you don't believe, you won't get any presents!"

As a kid, I thought it was fun to come downstairs and see what Santa got me. But I think I'd be just as thrilled if I knew it was from my parents. Presents are presents, man.

I like what it says in the article -- teach your kids that Santa is a pretend thing, like other pretend things. So you don't have to exclude him completely, just let your kids know that he's a traditional Christmas character and not a real guy.

[Craig Jessop]

My parents let us believe, but as soon as we started to ask questions like "wait, so why can't Santa afford lots of presents either?" they let us in on the deal. I was almost 8. Giovanni and I were taking turns pretending to be Santa by wrapping toys in dress up clothes; I was in the other room wrapping, where our mom was also reading. She looks up from her book and says "Craig, you know Santa isn't real, right?" And I said "yeah." But because they didn't milk it for all it was worth, it wasn't all that traumatic.

[Dragon Lady]

Yellow and I have been talking about this a fair bit lately, now that we actually have to make the decision. It was especially prevalent while I was wrapping "Santa" gifts for Dragon Baby and was wondering what to write on the "From:" line on the gift tag I made. Yellow's mom puts a smiley face there to differentiate them from the family gifts, but also to not lie as to who their from. It's a way of avoiding the issue. She feels uncomfortable lying about it, but also sees the benefit of the tradition. I ended up putting nothing.

I get the whole don't lie to your kids bit. That makes sense. But do they also not get the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny? I loved waking up to find money under my pillow. I still have a note I wrote to the Tooth Fairy explaining to her that I couldn't find my tooth, but that I really did lose one. What about when your kid wants more treats and you tell them that it's all gone. That's lying (assuming that they're not actually all gone, but that's the easiest way to explain to a toddler why they can't have any more).

The other thing that I like about Santa is that it builds imagination. I don't believe that's a bad thing at all. In fact, I think it's a wonderful thing. It's something that everyone (almost) can relate to and kids can imagine everything together.

On the other hand, my sis-in-law has a friend that is fourteen and just found out there was no Santa. But don't worry, they're still celebrating the "Spirit of Santa" in their home. (What the? What happened to the Spirit of Christmas?)

Our current thought of how to handle it is to learn more about Saint Nicholas himself, find out what part he played in the whole Santa bit, then talk about that with our kids. Teach them whatever quality St. Nick had that makes him great, and how he represents Christ. Don't totally nix the Santa idea. Let our kids believe if they want, but if they ever ask if he's real, we'll tell them about St. Nick and how he lived a long time ago, and how Santa is a way to remember his … generosity? (I really need to learn more about St. Nick before I can totally commit to this idea.) Then instead of focusing on the getting from Santa, we focus on the giving, the generosity, whatever it is about St. Nick that makes him great, and do stuff for others all season along those lines. Use St. Nick as another way to point to Christ. (Not that we're trying to use St. Nick to replace Christ. We'll still be focusing a lot on the true meaning of Christmas, but rather that we'll show them how Santa got started and what it originally meant and how everything points us back to Christ.)

Luckily we have another year (or maybe two if we're lucky?) before Dragon Baby really understands the whole Christmas thing. So we have time to work out our strategy.

[NerdGirl]

I don't think it's lying to tell your kids about Santa. I really like the way it was done in my family. Santa was presented to us as a kind, Christian man who gave simple presents to celebrate the birth of Jesus. We weren't encouraged to focus on getting whatever we wanted, but rather on the magic of it and how it's nice to give sneaky presents to people. We were never told that we'd better be good or Santa wasn't going to bring us anything. I think that's a bit manipulative. We knew Santa wasn't going to bring us tons of expensive presents, because we didn't need them and there were lots of other kids in the world who needed presents, too. We didn't write letters and Christmas lists asking for what we wanted - we were just surprised on Christmas morning and it was a lot of fun. When we got older and figured it out, I didn't feel like I had been lied to because there was no Santa. There was a Santa, but it was my parents. Believing in Santa and then realizing what was really going on set an example for me of giving in secret and expecting nothing in return that I have tried to follow ever since. I think it's an excellent way to teach your kids about giving gifts or service for the sole purpose of making someone else happy, and not to get recognition for yourself. Once my brother and I were in on the secret, we helped my mom put together secret Santa gifts and 12 days of Christmas type things for friends and neighbors, who still have no idea who left them the gifts.

[Unit of Energy]

I wrote a couple letters to santa as a child. My mom saved them in my file, which is basically my scrapbook waiting to happen. They were addressed to Santa, and mailed to my parent's PO box. That got some laughs at the post office for sure. As for actually believing in Santa, my parents never made a big deal out of it. Some years there were gifts from "Santa" that I knew for a fact my parents had not purchased, but the friends that had put for the money and effort to make sure we had Christmas presents that year remained unknown to us kids. One year I don't even think my parent's knew who had done it. I don't really remember believing in Santa, although I always enjoyed the stories and songs about him.

[krebscout]

Does it make a big difference either way? Seems like the kids who grew up with Santa are fine, and those who didn't are fine, too.

I don't think I really believed as a kid. I think I was pretty keen on it just being a fun story, and we all played along. Then one Easter I overheard my Aunt saying something revealing about the Easter bunny, and my feelings about all the mythical characters were confirmed. It wasn't a big deal.

[Katya]

Seems like the kids who grew up with Santa are fine, and those who didn't are fine, too.

I actually became an atheist (briefly) when I found out that Santa wasn't real. And I was mad at my mom for about a year afterward for lying to me. So, yeah.

[krebscout]

Seems like the kids who grew up with Santa are fine, and those who didn't are fine, too.

I actually became an atheist (briefly) when I found out that Santa wasn't real. And I was mad at my mom for about a year afterward for lying to me. So, yeah.

Interesting. That sucks.

[Imogen]

http://tomandlorenzo2.blogspot.com/2010 ... e-gay.html

santa.

no, seriously. go watch this video.

[Katya]

Seems like the kids who grew up with Santa are fine, and those who didn't are fine, too.

I actually became an atheist (briefly) when I found out that Santa wasn't real. And I was mad at my mom for about a year afterward for lying to me. So, yeah.

Interesting. That sucks.

It was such a bad experience that my parents resolved not to do Santa with my younger brother. (We're ten years apart, so we had very separate "Santa" experiences, if that makes any sense.) And then my brother learned about Santa from other kids at school and basically couldn't be talked out of it (or maybe got upset when they tried to talk him out of it--I should get more details).

Because of their experience with me, they were really worried about what would happen when he found out. So, when he started asking questions about whether or not Santa was real, they kind of eased him into the idea by saying "Well, some people believe in Santa and some people don't, but someone who loves you is leaving presents for you." That worked pretty well. And I think it also helped that Santa was always a low-key affair at my house; he brought small presents and candy in our stockings, but nothing more.

Which is actually the tack I think I'd like to take with my own kids, so apparently my own experience didn't scar me too badly.

[Dragon Lady]

http://tomandlorenzo2.blogspot.com/2010 ... e-gay.html

santa.

no, seriously. go watch this video.

That's really cute.

[thebigcheese]

http://tomandlorenzo2.blogspot.com/2010 ... e-gay.html

santa.

no, seriously. go watch this video.

That's a crazy story! It's also really cool. Good for them.

[Imogen]

i love that they fulfilled as many of the letters as they could. what a wonderful surprise for a kid on christmas day.

[Marduk]

Ok, just got home, and I see there's a few expectations for me to weigh in here, so I'll present some caveats, and explain some history to hopefully reveal more.

First off, Santa Claus as we know him is only very tangentially related to St. Nicholas. St Nicholas was a short and violent man who fought for the rights and well-being of the poor, quite literally. He was seen as a champion of the good, and quite equally, or perhaps more so, as a vengeance bringer on the wicked. The history of saints getting involved in bringing both goodness and "righteous vengeance" is a long one, one that is only slightly related here; so we will be satisfied with saying that Santa is an amalgamation of many saints and other images (the actual image of a big fat man in a red suit is actually only a few decades old) that were essentially used by corporate America as a way of injecting commercialism into the holiday. What better way to show universal love than by creating a big man in a suit giving gifts to youngsters? Parents were even encouraged, through the advertising, to go along with it, insisting that it would be "our little secret" as to who santa actually was (the parents, obviously.)

One can't get too offended at that, seeing as how the holiday itself was stolen by early Christians from the pagans. But all that aside, Santa's existence and perception today are largely the result of corporate America, both the retail industry and the support of Hollywood and popular media, eager to make a quick buck on a concept the public seemed happy to embrace.

So at least part of the reason to avoid the fat man is to show disapproval for the commercialism at its root. It seems to distract from genuine Christian giving, which, ostensibly, is a much more sensible way to celebrate the religious nature of the holiday.

Apart from all that history, santa seems mostly to be a secular stand-in for Christ. It is a way to popularize, and to an extent bastardize the religious nature of the holiday. Why talk about Christ and his birth when we can talk about all the presents that santa is going to get us?

Lastly, and perhaps more anecdotally, we have a (mistaken) idea that children need to be transitioned from gift recievers to gift givers. We think that a young child must get the gifts, then as they get older, they will be the ones giving. So we invent this character to do this giving for us, to artificially invent some "magic" for the season, to increase the "wonder" the children feel. Once that child is old enough to know the falsehoods perpetuated on them, they are old enough to continue the "magic" onto the next generation. This robs young children of developing generosity at a young age, and is totally unnecessary.

I have a LOT more thoughts on this, but I'll post these for now.

[krebscout]

Lastly, and perhaps more anecdotally, we have a (mistaken) idea that children need to be transitioned from gift recievers to gift givers. We think that a young child must get the gifts, then as they get older, they will be the ones giving. So we invent this character to do this giving for us, to artificially invent some "magic" for the season, to increase the "wonder" the children feel. Once that child is old enough to know the falsehoods perpetuated on them, they are old enough to continue the "magic" onto the next generation. This robs young children of developing generosity at a young age, and is totally unnecessary.

I've been mulling this over for a few days, and I'm rethinking my stance for our own kids. We had already decided to be a one-gift-per-holiday-family (one nice toy/whatever, with practical gifts like clothes on the side, per Christmas and birthday), and we had an incredible service experience this past Christmas that I'd like to repeat every year, and in fact I want to do it every month once we get the resources to do so...and I think it will impact my children's "developing [sense of] generosity" greatly if I have the fortitude to follow through...

But this is a great point. What do you think of playing along with the Santa thing very lightly, kinda like Katya said? Perhaps talking about it in a way that reveals that it isn't literal, like when your grandpa tells you with a wink that if you make an ugly face it will get stuck that way. The Santa thing is fun, and I'm sentimental. Keeping a bit of transparent Santa myth around while focusing most heavily on the Christian, charitable-aspect of the holiday...how do you feel about that?

[Tao]

Eh, I think I have to go with Terry Pratchett on this one:

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.
Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what's the point?
Death: YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?

I joke about it frequently, but my mother taught me how to lie, and, more importantly, when. As with any kind of violence, there will be those who prefer to do away with it and live their lives as far from ever needing to look at it as possible. I feel that this is a good path, though one I am not currently prepared for. Until then, I'll continue to lie as 'safely' as possible, and likely would be willing to teach my children the same, to hopefully encourage the desire to question anything they wish and at the same time cultivate a willingness to believe in some of life's bigger lies: altruism, peace on earth, a government that works, things of that nature.