Santa!?!?! I hate the lie!

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  • FindingMyPerfection
    FindingMyPerfection Posts: 702 Member
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    I enjoy it. I like seeing my 4 year old get excited about the magic of Christmas. She's got the rest of her life to grow up and realize how much life can suck. I like letting my kid be a kid.
    I don't see why Santa is needed to creat excitement.
  • Tatiana269
    Tatiana269 Posts: 23 Member
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    It's the joys of being a child.. let them enjoy using their imagination and being all young and innocent. Let your child enjoy being a child... they grow up too fast.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,622 Member
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    Mickey Mouse isn't real either. But somehow us adults love the "lie" of Disneyland/DisneyWorld too.

    Many books and movies are fictional. This can go on and on.

    If you really want to be truthful, you should abandon Xmas altogether since it really had nothing to do jesus being born, or Santa or any gift giving. It was derived from a Pagan holiday. That's why I like being Pagan...............they know how to party.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
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  • vim_n_vigor
    vim_n_vigor Posts: 4,089 Member
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    I wasn't crushed when I realized Santa wasn't real. And as an adult, I still have an active and wonderful imagination.

    It isn't a lie any more than playing house as children is a lie. It's pretend and it's fun.

    This^^

    Were all of you really so traumatized when you realized that Santa was a story just like the cartoons you watched and the books you read? Really?
  • Lonestar5775
    Lonestar5775 Posts: 740 Member
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    I enjoy it. I like seeing my 4 year old get excited about the magic of Christmas. She's got the rest of her life to grow up and realize how much life can suck. I like letting my kid be a kid.

    Wise words!
  • summertime_girl
    summertime_girl Posts: 3,945 Member
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    Aw, please don't spoil the magic that is Santa! They are only little for so long. My parents never did Santa, so I go way overboard with him with my kids. I want them to remember how magical it is!
  • _Calypso_
    _Calypso_ Posts: 1,074 Member
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    I'm 36 and still believe. NO of course there is not some big jolly old man with a white beard coming into my house late at night to leave presents. but I do believe in the magic of Christmas. Even after I learned the truth when I was little, my parents would say "this is going to be a tight Christmas. You wont be getting everything on your list" I had a younger brother and sister (11 & 13yrs younger) so I had to always believe.... well Christmas when I was 17... Santa brought me a car. So yea, while I know it wasn't some strange man, the magic was there. Some how/ some way my parents always had enough to get me and my siblings most (if not all) the things on our list. Same goes for me and my husband with our two children. No need to grow up so fast.

    And when they ask.... we will let them know the truth, but we do celebrate St. Nick, the spirit of giving to others and of course the magic.
  • FindingMyPerfection
    FindingMyPerfection Posts: 702 Member
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    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.
    This! This is what I want for my kids.
  • jlapey
    jlapey Posts: 1,850 Member
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    You could try this:

    http://moms.popsugar.com/Telling-Kids-Truth-About-Santa-27332439
  • dennik15
    dennik15 Posts: 97 Member
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    I enjoy it. I like seeing my 4 year old get excited about the magic of Christmas. She's got the rest of her life to grow up and realize how much life can suck. I like letting my kid be a kid.

    ^^^This, so much this! I guess if it's against your religious beliefs to perpetuate Santa, then don't. Otherwise let them have the magic of Christmas for the short while they can. My kids no longer believe and there was no awful breakdown and accusations of lying. They simply grew out of it. If anything I was the sad one, not them. I still believe in the magic, just not the man and I hope my kids do too.
  • Chain_Ring
    Chain_Ring Posts: 753 Member
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    Because kids love it. Were you scarred for life when you found out the Tooth Fairy was a big lie? ha ha
  • FatHuMan1
    FatHuMan1 Posts: 1,028 Member
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    Because being a child is the closest any of us will get to unencumbered bliss. Let them enjoy it while they can, it ends all too soon.
  • Gail3260
    Gail3260 Posts: 354 Member
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    My kids weren't at all disappointed when they discovered there was no Santa.

    When they knew that their presents weren't from a chap in a red suit who they'd never seen, they realised that as long as their requests weren't extravagant it was a certainty they'd get what they'd asked for.

    They were rather more bothered to discover there was no tooth fairy!
  • Beastmaster50
    Beastmaster50 Posts: 505 Member
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    Why not let them enjoy the fantasy? Its fun and exciting. I personally think parents opposed to the myth are being selfish because they aren't getting the credit for gift giving.
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
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    My parents told my brother and I at a very young age. They told us not to ruin it for our friends and classmates, but explained the real meaning of Christmas. I don't feel like I missed out on anything. We still celebrated and had traditions. I still had a fantastic imagination. I don't think there is harm in either way.
    Why can't you have both an understanding of the "true" meaning and still believe in Santa?

    You don't know if it ruined something special because you never got to experience it.
  • FindingMyPerfection
    FindingMyPerfection Posts: 702 Member
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    Santa's not real?

    Seriously...santa helps teach children about unconditional giving, and that's a good life lesson.

    I believe Santa has a naughty list.
  • bbg_daryl
    bbg_daryl Posts: 150 Member
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    I told my parents when I was 4 years old that I knew Santa wasn't real. And when they asked why I didn't believe in him, I told them that it wasn't possible for one man to travel the world that quickly, while also stopping in every house to eat a snack and deliver presents. They took me out for ice cream to convince me to play along so that my older brothers wouldn't be crushed with the reality. They didn't figure out till they were closer to 10 years old.
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
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    "DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
    "Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
    "Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
    "Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

    "VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
    "115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

    VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

    Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

    Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

    You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

    No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
  • emily356
    emily356 Posts: 318 Member
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    Ok, My thoughts are not popular, but we all have to choose how to raise our children, so here it goes. I feel exactly like you do. And I have no clue what your religious beliefs are, but for us, it is the time we celebrate our savior's birth. So, We were really torn! Then one day, our oldest just straight up asked us, like yours did, if he was real, we just decided we were not gonna lie about it. We are extremely blunt and honest people to begin with, and always talk with our kids about how we will always tell them the truth, no matter what.
    I do feel like in the back of my mind, I always did remember feeling betrayed that my parents had lied to me about Santa. I am an extremely trusting person. If my parents told me something was true, then it was true, you know? So, we do not "do" Santa. I am actually buying a book at St. Nicholas to start reading to them at Christmas time. They know the story because we have told them, but St. Nicholas Day is Dec. 6th, I believe, and I would like to start incorporating that into our traditions. He was a real person and did wonderful things and showed compassion. Okay, ramble over.:smile:
  • Mischievous_Rascal
    Mischievous_Rascal Posts: 1,791 Member
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    IMO, I think if you try and take away all of life's little disappointments, kids won't be able to handle the big ones later on when you're not there to protect them.

    As for Santa, I do it because I lived next door to a couple that didn't celebrate anything Christmas (they went to the graveyard and visited dead relatives on Christmas mornings) and they passed that on to their daughter. One year, when she was eight, she told me that she wished her parents believed in Santa so he would come to her house, too. She was pretty upset with her parents for what she saw as being left out of all the fun her friends were having because of them. Kids are kids, and they will believe what they want to, and if their friends believe in Santa they will, as well. Heck, my son is ten and he still believes, even though some of his friends don't! I'm lovin it!!! :)

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