Santa!?!?! I hate the lie!

TrailRunner61

I know that some Christians don't believe in telling or practicing the story of Santa Claus because they think of it as being 'fake' and not the real reason for Christmas. I chose to let mine believe because of all the gifts that were brought to Jesus when he was born. Also St. Nicholas was a real person, who gave gifts to the poor. I also taught my kids that Christmas was more about GIVING than getting and they grew up just fine. Of course when they got older, they found out that Santa wasn't 'real' and were a bit disappointed, but it wasn't a big deal! They will have bigger disappointments in life to deal with later. The excitement is about the giving and receiving with gratitude and they knew that.
I'll also add that when my son was 5 and older kids at school told him Santa wasn't real, I just told him that some people believe and some don't, and left it at that. Eventually his older sisters showed him my Santa 'stash' in our camper, so he knew for real.
Now they all have their own children, Santa AND Jesus is in their lives too.
Don't sweat it, let them believe.

PRMinx

Ew. Get over yourself, seriously.

So, because your parents were brutally honest they had a better marriage? Is it really that simple? No, it isn't. And insinuating that those of us who came from divorced and/or cheating homes were not raised with honesty, or do not recognize the importance of honesty is as insulting as it is wrong.

To the person who posed the question about Dad banging his secretary....

Been there as a kid, Got the honest story at a very young age from both parents. Not the best experience then and still repairing the damage now.

That's still much better than the alternative of you believing in Santa till you were 6....
:insertsarcasm:

You're so right. Had I known Santa was to blame this whole time I could have saved a lot of money on therapy....darn. :flowerforyou:

Iron_Lotus

Sometimes being a good parent means lying to them.

My kids still believe. I love that Christmas is magical to them. Believing in santa doesn't mean you don’t teach them the meaning of Christmas though.

Another crock!


Love = honesty

Disagree! There are adult things that children should NOT be exposed to. I believe lying is at times necessary to protect them.

Protecting little ones is NOT the same as telling them lies. Don't be absurd.

Semantics! Lying by omission is still a lie and although we are friends I think you are being extremely judgmental, condescending and frankly you are being absurd.

latewinter

Tell him the truth. My mom did, and I learned to appreciate Christmas for the family time and spirit of generosity. I'm going to do the same for mine.

So true! My kids understand and appreciate Christmas, whereas the ones that get told the Santa lie, end up believing that Christmas is all about presents.

This is a horrible thing to say. and not true.

It's horrible to equate Christmas with giving presents. It's also horrible to lie to your loved ones because it's "entertaining" or whatever.

Christmas is about presents. Are you new?

That's too bad that people feel that way. smh


We have had Christmas at our house when my husband was in the hospital and no one got any presents. Yet, it was still Christmas. Christmas has nothing to do with presents. And thank God for that!

Why bother celebrating it at all? It's essentially meaningless.

its like valentines day lol money making scam. i just like to spend time with my family or in this years case time with my bf. and yes the odd present is nice but i don't expect anything off anyone because i havnt got anyone else anything

iamanadult

SANTA=
SATAN
same letters
Don't be fooled!

#carryon

His name is SAINT Nicholas. Santa for short.

Saint: a person acknowledged as holy or virtuous and typically regarded as being in heaven after death.

#carlos #noteverythingisaconspiracy

But only Catholics have saints and Catholics are evil pagans who worship idols and not real Christians.

Therefore, Santa = Satan.

I consider myself a saint and I'm not Catholic.

Hornsby

I was never taught to believe Santa was real and I enjoyed every single Christmas. More important that they learn about the real meaning of Xmas at a young age.

LMFTFY

1. Christmas has nothing to do with Christ. It's a pagan holiday celebrating hunting and sex. Christian Kings several hundred years ago made up the lie that it was Jesus' birthday because it was easier to get pagans to convert to Christianity by letting them keep their holiday.

2. X "fixes" nothing, as the X in "Xmas" stands for the Greek letter Chi, which is a common abbreviation for Christ.

Not sure of your point, and not sure if you were actually trying to teach me something? Either way.....1. yes 2. yes, but that is not the common belief/meaning of the X among the masses.

BusyRaeNOTBusty

Honestly I don't like all the lying to kids thing either. I try to keep it to a minimum. No elf on the shelf or black mailing them to behave.

beachlover317

*

Dgydad

The flaw is in your second sentence. While you aren't a parent, the poster is. There are consequences to the child either way, and the parent must deal with them. Simply "defaulting" to "the truth" isn't a no-impact solution. Kids aren't merely small adults, and each one is pretty much unique....

NewLIFEstyle4ME

Well...99% of everything we are taught in school and churches is either an outright lie or based on as Mark Twain once said "Lies, damn lies and statistics. Our peculiar and shameful western civiliization and history in particular is, was and always will be based in and on FEAR, paganism/idolatry, lies, deception, denial and greed, wars, mass murders/genocide, slavery (real or debt/wage slavery) and cruelty and every evil work known to man and everything that have been told/taught and retold and passed down as truth in the name of history is most always "dressed up as" fun, progress, safety, harmlessness and built upon materialism, greed and deception--designed to benefit the few at the mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, physical deception and robbery of the many.

That said...it's up to YOU as the mother have the blessed "choice" to purposely decide to carry on the "tradition" of lies, hypocrisy, greed, materialism and YUCK in the name of "everyone is doing it or does it", keeping up with the Joneses, and buying into the lie and selling the truth. IF you choose to not go along with the "herd", then be prepared to be scorned, ridiculed, mocked, scoffed at and rejected. Ig loving and teaching your children THE TRUTH (in holidays/holy days, history, and life in general, in the name of TRUTH...just know that you shall be a rare and courageous person. If not, you certainly will NOT be alone, as you will have the masses not only back you...but applaud you as well.

John 8:32 "and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
Steve Jobs

Courage is grace under pressure. Ernest Hemingway

Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway. John Wayne

The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.
Jim Hightower

How on earth did a post about a 3 yr old and the truth of Santa get turned into this?
Good grief, people, LIGHTEN UP! :flowerforyou:

:flowerforyou: :flowerforyou:

amyfullbrook

Let your kids be kids, let them believe in the magic of Christmas! They'll grow up and be dissapointed a whole lot with life in general, let them enjoy their childhood while they can

msf74

We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.~ George Bernard Shaw

Santa! Santa!

rml_16

Tell him the truth. My mom did, and I learned to appreciate Christmas for the family time and spirit of generosity. I'm going to do the same for mine.

So true! My kids understand and appreciate Christmas, whereas the ones that get told the Santa lie, end up believing that Christmas is all about presents.

Is that so?

That has been my observations over the years. My kids are now observing the same with their classmates in high school.

Gimme, gimme, mine, mine...

LOL Just as one day of eating at Thanksgiving did not make anyone on MFP fat, one day of gift giving by Santa did not make any child self-centered and greedy. It is more in the day to day parenting that is done in homes to produce such children.

Stop it. That makes too much sense.

I have a 19-year-old college sophomore daughter. She and her friends grew up with Santa. They are the sweetest, most giving, unselfish children I know.

Sounds like you know a lot of kids with bad parents.

Oh, I don't doubt that. TBH, much of my ranting has just be reacting to idiotic attacks on the OP. When people get like that, I give them a taste of their own medicine. They never like it. :laugh:

The OP can, obviously, do what she wants. I just find this whole debate very sad. Equating letting kids believe in something like Santa to lynig makes me sad.

When I was little, I really and truly believed there was a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow and that unicorns existed. Sometimes, I still believe those things. I see Santa as something similar. Is it really a lie?

And then I see so many adults with no sense of humor or adventure or ... I don't know. Something is lacking. And I didn't know until recent years that there were families who celebrated Christmas and didn't allow Santa in their homes, but now I do and it explains a lot.

Obviously, it isn't about Santa specifically, since non-Christians for the most part wouldn't have used that. Half my family is Jewish, so I really do know this. It's the idea of stomping on that innocent wonder and belief that bothers me and it makes me want to cry.

sassyjae21

1. So it's okay to teach your child it's okay lie?
2. You expect your child to trust you?
3. Why not just teach them the truth, It;s about GOD
4. A creepy fat guy watching us all year long, then coming down our chimney eating our food and leaving. CREEPY! (and what if you don't have a chimney)
5. It's bribery, if you were are a good parent you wouldn't need to use gifts as a way to get your child to behave all year long.
6. I work to give my child those girts, why let some imaginary guy get the credit for my hard work and time.
7. it's NOT the reason for the season.
8. It's makes it all about getting gifts, instead of giving them.
9. How do you explain to your kid that Santa was in that store, but somehow is in the very next you also?
10. If your feeling bad about it it, maybe that's continence trying to tell you something.
11. my lil girl doesn't believe in it and she have never gotten picked on , i have a feeling thats YOUR OWN fear, projecting into your child's life, bc just maybe they don't just "go with the flow".
12. I would hate to be you on judgment day, trying to explain why you gave some made up guy the glory in time the was dedicated to God.
13. it does not deprive them of anything by not telling them a LIE. it teaches them gratitude for the hard work you put into giving them gifts,
14. how old is that guy anyway?!?!?!?
15. you dont t3ell your child that the Disney characters are real, why would you tell them santa is real?
i know i came off harsh, but it was all said in love.

what does me pooping have to do with telling my children about santa?

jk.:flowerforyou:

neandermagnon

I didn't want to do Santa with my first, but did after awhile everyone convinced me I should. I am very glad I did. She loved Christmas and the magic of Santa, and when she was older we explained everything to her. She started questioning Santa at 6 and at 8 we told her the story of St. Nick. She was not crushed to learn the truth and now helps be Santa for her little brother.

^^^ this

a boy at school told me that Santa wasn't real when I was six, he said the presents came from my parents, and they just pretended that they came from Santa (I wasn't upset, because it seemed more logical than a man with magic reindeer trying to get down the heating vent because our house didn't have a chimney). What he said made logical sense to me, so I stopped believing in Santa. However, when I told my mum I didn't believe in Santa, while she was talking to a neighbour, the neighbour said that if I didn't believe in Santa I wouldn't get any present. So I carried on pretending to believe in Santa to get presents until I was twelve, when it was just a case of both sides abandoning any pretense of believing in Santa, but I still got a Christmas stocking anyway, so no complaints at all really....


I don't think it's going to be the case that kids are crushed when they find out that Santa isn't real. I think they just need reassurance that they'll still get their presents even though he's not real. However, it's probably age dependent... I wouldn't expect a three year old to have the same logical approach to "Santa doesn't exist but that's cool because I still get presents" that you'd expect from a six or seven year old.

dumb_blondes_rock

I love how everyone is saying its about a childs imagination, and probably will be buying them a ps4 or other electronic play system for xmas. If you want a child to have a child-like imagination, you dont have to do it with a lie you can just give them a box and tell them to play outside. We didnt celebrate xmas and I had a wild imagination as a child, but I was only allowed to play the nintendo for a hour, and my bro sis and I had to split the hour umongst us. Since I was the baby I got a good 5-10 mins worth of play time haha

40andFindingFitness

We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.~ George Bernard Shaw

Santa! Santa!

Was Shaw Santa!?! :0)

Donners185

Who gives a f*@k???? Each to their own. Do what you want to do.

MinMin97

Sometimes being a good parent means lying to them.

My kids still believe. I love that Christmas is magical to them. Believing in santa doesn't mean you don’t teach them the meaning of Christmas though.

I will never agree with that!

You are in for a tough road ahead then.

Nope, not so tough. My kids are nearly grown, and have told us that they love the fact that they can know that we will always be honest with them. I feel sorry for kids whose parents lie to them for their own convenience. Screw that.

Our teens have an open and honest relationship. Since we have always been honest with them, they are free now to be honest with us, even on tough issues like sex/drugs. Being a liar is no good for long term relationships.

Let's be clear, I said protecting children from the truth isn't necessarily lying.

Let me ask you this....

If your parents would have gotten divorced when you were 3 years old cause your dad banged his secretary, and you asked your mother why they got divorced. Would you expect them to tell you "Because daddy banged the secretary?"

If your parents got divorced and you were told "Your father died....that's why he's not here." That would be a lie. How a parent explains the divorce based on adultery is going to vary, but a child can understand unfaithfulness without being given inappropriate details.
If you tell your child about the historical origin of Santa, that would be truthful. If you tell him Santa is going to show up on a flying sleigh and slide down your chimney, etc, that would not be the truth.
Why do I feel that you already know this?

usmcmp

I was never taught to believe Santa was real and I enjoyed every single Christmas. More important that they learn about the real meaning of Xmas at a young age.

LMFTFY

1. Christmas has nothing to do with Christ. It's a pagan holiday celebrating hunting and sex. Christian Kings several hundred years ago made up the lie that it was Jesus' birthday because it was easier to get pagans to convert to Christianity by letting them keep their holiday.

2. X "fixes" nothing, as the X in "Xmas" stands for the Greek letter Chi, which is a common abbreviation for Christ.

1. Yes, you're right.
2. Yes and no. X is part of IXOYE which stands for Jesus Christ Son (of) God Savior. The X still means Christ.