Santa Discussion

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I think you are on to something, there, leechbabe. I never batted an eye when learning about the 'tooth fairy' because fairies were always supposed to be imaginary.

With me it was placing Santa Claus in the religion category that provided a breech in my religious upbringing. I prayed to Santa for my presents and the presents of others, and I asked Santa for world peace, too! Because he wouldn't even have to lug it on his sleigh. What if the God I prayed to was just another Santa?? Nooooooo!
If Santa was a Saint and the Saint was supposed to have 'magical qualities' but the qualities were not actual and it was all just a sweet bedtime story, then what else in religion was just a bedtime story?

Merle

That is the reason why I can't bring myself to do the Santa thing. My parents lied to me and it made me upset. I was four or five years old and had my suspicions my mom was lying to me. I actually remember earlier on that Santa wasn't real. Sitting down a guys lap with his beard half falling off didn't help when I was around four. When I was four or five, my mom urged me to go to bed and it felt earlier than usual. I went to bed and saw her going to her truck and carry a bunch of Christmas gifts. That morning she said, "Look what santa brought!" I told her that I saw her the night before but she denied it. My family continued to play santa.

Some children are traumatized by it. I was in my own way. It depends on the child. I believe it depends on who they are doing the research on. How are they choosing their children? Are they middle to upper middle class children? Are they children from all walks of life? Just curious.

i'm glad that so many of you "never bought the story".....unfortunately, our reality is that daughter has bought the story. i think it's ok for people to believe in the spirit of christmas. i just think that at some point, she needs to be told the truth...... she's already made fun of by peers- i really don't want to give them anymore ammunition.........son's caught on around 4th grade. they've always gone along with it for daughter's sake ( they're 5 & 7 years older than her).
daughter told me the other day that she knows why brother doesn't get as good presents as her- it's because he doesn't believe in santa...........

My son is 7 now, and for the past two Christmasses he has asked about whether or not Santa is real. When he asked me this year, I asked him what he thought. He hummed and hawed a wee bit, then decided that he did believe in Santa. Personally, I think there is a bit of self interest mixed in with a lingering belief. Another mother told me that the children in his class, P3, had been talking about it so that's possibly what made him ask.

I am not comfortable about the whole Santa thing, tbh, and I don't make a big deal of it at all. I hate the consumerism around Christmas, and Santa is central to that. I've explained about Saint Nicholas so he knows that there is a story behind the modern day Santa.

I'm a Christian, and my son goes to a Roman Catholic Primary School, so the main focus at home and at school is on the birth of Christ. My son's birthday is 3 days before Christmas, and he seems to like the idea that he and Jesus both have December birthdays!

I will be quite glad really when he stops believing in Santa, but I'll let my son take the lead on any future discussions about Santa and then focus on explaining how this tradition came about.

I personally was raised to not believe in Santa. My parents viewed it as a challenge to the religious part of Christmas.

My wife wants to do the Santa thing with our kids (3 severe kanner autism, and 1 NT I think). We are still in disagreement but the kids are not at a point to get it.

I played Santa once at a party for a friends family. A little boy looked me in the eyes and said "I love you Santa" and gave me hug.

I felt like the worst person on Earth for receiving such ernest emotion in exchange for lieing to him.

That said, I would agree on encouraging her to be a Santa for someone else.

It's not Jesus birthday Christmas is for, but for the sun god

Another example of a syncronist celebration that has been cooked up in an attempt to unite "Christians" and "Pagans".

In the Laura Ingals Wilder books there is a passage where Ma sits the older girls down and asks them if they really believe Santa could deliver all those gifts everywhere in just one night. And then she says something to the effect of since it isn't possible, then Santa obviously has lots of helpers, and she needs them to be helpers this year, making a gift for their youngest sister.

That is basically the tact I've taken with my kids. There is magic in the world, but we make it happen. My son hasn't believed in Santa since he was 6 or 7, but he doesn't want to discover how I do that last bit of magic he hasn't figured out yet: Santa gifts arrive in special paper, nowhere to be found in this house.

I think I just figured the whole Santa thing out, like my son has, and kept the secret for my little sister. I can't remember the age. My daughter, however, had an adult tell her last spring that there was no Santa, and despite my answering honestly when she asked me about it (using all that fun "many helpers" language) she was still struggling with it this Christmas. I've told her that she is free to believe what she chooses, that there is magic in the world, things we can't understand, but if she is asking do I believe a man in a red suit delivers her gifts, the answer is no. After I thought she was asleep, as I was stuffing her stocking, she ran out of her room, gave me a giant hug, and bragged with a smile on her face, "I've caught Santa."

I think it's quite possible to allow children to believe in Santa without lying to them. It's in how you choose your words. When you go to a magic show, you know it's a trick, but it's still magic. Sometimes we don't wish to know all the details involved in the truth. We can know it, and yet have fun with it.

As I said earlier, I don't remember, how old I was when I figured out about Santa. It seems that somewhere between 3rd grade and 6th is the norm.

The answer I would give in the poll, which isn't available, is "Santa is the spirit of giving at Christmas." So, yes, I believe in Santa. But not a man in a red suit.

I learned that Santa wasn't real at the age of 5. In preschool, the teacher introduced the director to all the kids in her class. The director made regular visits to the classroom, so I knew what she looked like and sounded like. Each year, when Christmas rolled around, and the preschool did a celebration for the kids. At the end of the celebration, Santa walked around the room and handed out presents (bags of candy and small toys).

I was getting older, and started to learn about the effort it takes to put together a Christmas celebration for kids. Being an aspie, I was very observant too. I remember seeing maintenance guys carrying big cardboard boxes into the gym, other teachers setting up chairs and putting decorations on the tree, and trucks with logos on them being parked outside the preschool. Once that was done, there was a celebration. At the end, as usual, Santa was walking by each kid and handing out presents. When he came by my chair, I was surprised that he had a woman's voice and sounded like the preschool director.

A week or so later, I asked my parents about it. At that point, they explained to me that Santa was a person in a suit. Much to my (and their) surprise, I wasn't upset by the truth at all. Based on my observations, I already viewed the Christmas celebration as a theatrical act of some sort, put together by the people who worked at the preschool (teachers, maintenance guys, and the director). Discovering who played Santa was just another piece of the puzzle I learned about.

other kids have told her that santa doesn't exist. heck, even her brothers have told her. she firmly believes that santa is real.

I don't remember what age with Santa. I remember being really fasinated with Easter bunny because at school he would leave all the kids in the class a bag of lollies. There was chalk footprints around the school of a big bunny foot. People was laughing, saying some one drew the footprints but I beleived it most likely really was easter bunny and he must have trud in some chalk or something plus my girlfriend said she seen easter bunny ears go past the classroom window.

I always had my doubts but I officaly gave it up at ten. Whenever I asked my mom if Santa was real she would never actualy answer my question but would say, "There was a Santa Clause." and/or "No one can live forever." If my mom would give me a simple no, it would not have tramatised me. My parents were really smart about fooling me. When I asked why the presents from Santa were wraped with the same paper my parents were using she said that he and his elfs were super busy to personaly wrap the gifts, so he would leave the gifts for the parents to wrap up. I bought it. I only believed in the Easter bunny for like a minnute. The tooth fairy, never. The idea of Santa is nice, but why lie to our kids?