Santa - WHY?

[Blackduck]

Just musing on this the other day. DS is 3 and a half. We haven't pushed the santa thing (but neither have we not talked about it either) in that we haven't got him to write a Christams list or anything like that. I am starting to have a fundamental problem with telling him a man in a red suit (TM Coke Cola circa 1930) will be delivering him his presents on Christams Eve (if he's been a good boy). The letter writing wishlist seems to me to just put even more pressure on parents. This isn't Bah Humbug either, I'm just trying to think it through. I find it quite worrying when my ILs told me that the oldest GD (now eleven) has only just be told/realises that Santa doesn't exist (I'm sure I knew LONG before this....) So what are your thoughts?

WWW - scary isn't it - where does the time go....

Some people believe in the baby Jesus, some don't (Heathens!

Some folks believe in telling their kids about FC, some don't.

We all do things differently, it doesn't make anyone better than anyone else.

What has struck me most about these threads are those like me who choose not to tell their kids about FC, feeling as though they have to justify themselves against those folks shouting "Scrooge" and so on. No-one should have to justify their beliefs or traditions surely? Not everyone has to go with the crowd you know!

Have a merry Christmas everyone!

oh i dunno rhuby, there was a thread back in november where we were all, in addition to everything you said, socially irresponsible.

I dunno, I don't like being kept in ignorance and thus far, I have not noticed that my kids do either.

I would not rob my kids of a belief that they had created themselves. In fact I am most polite about many of their very outlandlish beliefs. Ds, for example, is convinced that he used to be big and we used to be little. I would not be rude enough to tell him that, actually, this has probably never been the case

But instigating a belief that is I knpow untrue is not really what I want to do, tbh. That feels, to me, to be very wrong.

A world apart from eg fairy tales because in the final analysis I will tell ds that they are not true, or not really (psychological allegorical status aside )

at some of the mean-spirited comments on this thread.

You see, I wan my kids to be kids for as long as possible. I don't want them to be scared that people are breaking into their house at night. I want them to believe that santa comes down the chimney and drinks the sherry, eats the mince pie and leaves the toys. I was never threatened by this as a child and if my child was threatened by this I would try and find some other way of explaining how the presents got there. Santa is so magical, it makes Christmas for kids. It would be so cruel if I suddenly turned round to them and told them it was all make believe.

Kids work out the truth in their own way. My DSs haven't reached the age of doubt yet but I would just answer their initial queries with "What do you think?" which is how I challenge them when they tell me that so-and-so at school has told them such-and-such. By the time they've worked it out for themselves, they'll be old enough to take it - but christmas will have changed for them, as it always does as you grow up.

I remember one year when I was about 12 my mum decided she would just put our presents in the sack without wrapping them up which was hugely disappointing for me, even at such an advanced age. I was still grateful for the presents but missed the anticipation and the magic of unwrapping them.

And like custy says, we tell lies to our kids all the time, especially about their friends - "Oh no, little Jack didn't mean to be mean and leave you out, he just forgot" when you know for a fact that the evil little shit did mean to upset and exclude him.

I don't spoil my kids. I won't buy them playstations and expensive gadgets that we can't afford and that I don't approve of. I won't let them have TVs in their room or watch 15-rated movies when they're only 6. But I will indulge them in the special magic of Christmas while I can - including the message of Jesus - because all too soon they'll be desperate to get away from home and spend all their time at parties or in the pub. But they'll never forget how magical childhood christmases were, and neither will I.

Terry Pratchett made an excellent point in an interview in the Big Issue. We start out believing in Father Christmas and end up believing in equally untouchable, unseeable, abstract things like justice and equality. Fairy stories and myths are ways of transmitting important lessons to our children. That's why they have endured for centuries.

Will see if I can dig out the quote...

• Note to anyone wondering who he is - best-selling and very witty author.