Santa, Baby
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Yesterday, I did the worst thing a secular parent can do: I took my kid to see Santa Claus.
Okay, so maybe that’s not the worst thing, but I fluctuate between thinking Santa is harmless and thinking I don’t want to encourage delusions. But somewhere along the way, Julieanne learned about Santa and she loves the idea of Santa. I decided not to shatter that yet: I’m not going to lie to her because I want her to know she can trust me. But I don’t want to take away something she wants, either. She’s three. Plenty of time for cold, hard truth in the future. After she looked at me with tears in her eyes last week and said in the world’s saddest voice, “I don’t know how to find Santa,” I decided to take her to see Santa at the mall.
After an hour and half of waiting and nervously hoping that we would get to the front of the line before Santa took his half hour break at 3:oo (we got in line at 1:30, and it wasn’t so long that I thought it would take more than 45 minutes, but one group of people took TWENTY minutes once they arrived at the front of the line, trying to get perfect pictures with a large group of small children. Made everybody angry!), we were the last ones to get to see him before break time.
Julieanne hopped on his lap. “What do you want for Christmas?” he asked.
“Candy canes!” she replied.
“Anything else?”
She paused. “Candy canes!”
Well, candy canes are a lot cheaper than the pile of presents I have under my tree. Maybe I should take them back and just buy a bunch of candy canes instead! She didn’t mind the long wait for 30 seconds of Santa’s time because he gave her one of those mini candy canes. I wish she were so easy to please at home!
The moral of the story is that I often hear from both Christians and atheists that incorporating Santa into the holiday celebrations is unhealthy. Conservative Christians don’t like how Santa takes away from Jesus (or in my parents’ case, they didn’t want us to think that if they lied about Santa that they were lying about God, too), and atheists often don’t want to foster delusion. I actually like what my parents did: they allowed me to believe what I wanted, but resolved to tell me the truth, too. Julieanne is a little harder than I was because she gets into the idea of Santa more than I did. So in the end, it comes down to what works for your kids. You know your kids, and I don’t think you should trade your instincts for the dogmatic ideas you have, Christian or atheist or whatever. Every kid is different. Some kids, you could tell there was no Santa, and they would be fine. Others would resent you forever for taking the magic away. In the end, a little Santa won’t kill them. I like the idea of telling them the truth if they ask you directly, but overall, I say, let them be kids.
Tags: Christmas, Santa, secular Christmas, secular parenting
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December 15th, 2009 at 3:42 am
I think (hope) most atheists would know the difference between indulging in the little healthy fantasy which will not last past the age of twelve (at the outside) and delusions that affect the way you live your life as an adult and force you to have very unhealthy views about other people.
Playing World of Warcraft, reading Cecelia Ahern, Sci-Fi movies, crushes, dreams, imagination, Santa and the Tooth Fairy: All fantasies that if you don’t abuse them are very good for you. In fact, without them I can’t imagine a person being whole.
Although I do believe the term “Father Christmas” actually refers to a non-Christian wood spirit – which might be more suitable for avoiding attachments to undesirable ideas.
December 15th, 2009 at 5:44 am
I’m okay with taking my kid to see Santa Claus. I don’t believe in him because I know the truth but it’s nice to use Santa as an excuse for him not getting what he wants for Christmas. If he asks why, I just say, blame it on the fat man!! xD
December 15th, 2009 at 7:02 am
In my family we call it the “Santa Game” in that way we are being truthful with the kids while at the same time letting them now that it is less than real. The idea may be helpful to you. I know someday that that my kids will have to confront that issue and then they will realize why we called it a game.
My boy the other day a little frustrated informed Chaz and I saying, “Santa is not a game.” My wife and I laughed but we know how important it is to separate truth from fiction.
I think having a healthy imagination is important in terms of how children come up with new ideas, see new possibilities, think outside the box, and see the potential in the world. I think a purely naturalistic worldview corrupts a person’s abilities to come up with new ideas which has a direct impact on harming science and the ability of the human race to progress by coming up with new ideas over time. In fact, Climategate is proving to the world just how closed minded most of these secular scientists are… Science should never shut out ideas; rather, it should embrace ideas and be a place about ideas.
God Bless…
December 15th, 2009 at 8:10 am
I had this conversation over a decade ago:
My eight-year-old, in a loving and gentle voice: “Mom, it’s okay. You don’t have to pretend anymore. I know there is no such thing as Santa.”
Me: “Oh, okay. That’s good. If you don’t believe in Santa, then there is no reason for him to bring any presents. Christmas will be a lot cheaper from now on.”
Him: “NO! NO! I believe. Santa Claus is real!”
Me: “Oh, good, because I believe, too.”
I’m almost fifty and my parents are in their eighties but we always talk about Santa as if he is real. It’s fun. And sometimes really funny.
December 15th, 2009 at 8:43 am
There is a variation on The Riddle of the Sphynx: (ie; what walks on four legs…two legs…three legs (I’m at the three legs part now)
What believes in Santa in the morning, doesn’t belive in Santa at mid-morning, and becomes Santa at noon?
Most people who become parents.
I knew Santa was absurd (and also any deity) about the age of five. But, I enjoyed the fun. I did have some trouble with the idea that if I was bad I’d get “a bundle of switches” (my family being of largely German stock).
The only switches I knew about were the ones that turned the lights off and on, and things trains went over to get to another track! What did they have to do with my being bad?! Made no sense at all.
My sons approached me and asked for the truth at one point. I told them. What they found distressing was the fact that the presents might stop now that the cat was out of the bag. I let them hang and twist on that one…but them I’m mean.
One day I caught them snooping about the place and asked if they were hunting presents. They displayed that wide eyed, toothy grin of black guilt and said, “No Dad, just our, uh, uh, SWEATERS! We lost them”!
I said, “Your mother put them in the shelf in the hall closet. Use a ladder, not a chair if you’re going to peek”. And walked away.
I heard the oldest say, “No one can spoil spoiling christmas like Dad”.
Funny thing, they DIDN’T peek! It tasked them like Moby tasked Ahab for weeks, but they didn’t peek”!
Watching them suffer was a great present for me, though…
December 15th, 2009 at 9:14 am
I have struggled with the problem of letting my daughter believe in Santa while also telling her that I don’t think there is such thing as God. In the end I decided that I don’t see any long term harm in the fantasy. One day she will ask me to tell her the truth and I will, but until then I will allow it to continue. I think at some point in her life she will be able to understand that we did it for her with no malice intended.
December 15th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
I think a childhood with out fantasy would be very sad indeed. The Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Santa, Hallowe’en witches and goblins all play an important part in childhood development and imagination. Magic is something children feel more than adults – sad to take that away from them. As long as they are raised to ‘question everything’ I don’t see any harm in it.
Plus, the candy canes are yummy 
So, I say Santa-away!
Thanks for stopping by my site yesterday!
December 15th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Well, I don’t have much to add to what the others have said. My husband and I let our kids believe in Santa until they understood the truth one way or the other, and they don’t seem the least traumatized by that.
I think we must use common sense and be empathic with our kids’ feelings above all. Atheists or not, we don’t have to follow strict rules.
December 15th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
I actually am a believer in the Divine, but I think the Santa myth has really negative meanings, so we don’t do it.
We will see how we do after family christmas this year – we have just been ignoring the santa thing (last year my stepdad carved him a santa-head ornament and he said “why did Grandpa send me a head?”) but a whole week with family is going to strain that considerably. I don’t want him ruining anyone else’s little charade.
December 15th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
With the caveat that I am not yet a parent, I take the “Santa is fine for make-believe” stance. Santa is a personification of the spirit of Christmas – generosity, goodwill toward all, etc. (I should clarify that this is what Christmas is to me, a lifelong atheist. I understand other people think it has something to do with Jesus, which I find weird.)
Kids like make-believe. They like pretending. But as real as it seems some times, at some level they know it’s just pretend.
I am leery of trying to force any kind of true belief on kids for which I don’t have good evidence, so I would never try to convince a kid that Santa was real… and if it were my kid, I would actively try to dissuade such a belief if they picked it up elsewhere. (Not by making physics arguments about Santa’s impossibility, but by telling them that it was fun make-believe.)
December 16th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Our two year old is discovering Santa this year, thanks to the Rankin/Bass movies I have collected. I loved them as a kid, and it looks like our kids will share that love. We don’t really talk about Santa, other than discussing the movies and songs that we hear on the radio. When we see statues of Santa, he gets really excited and shouts, “Look, Mama! It’s Santa!” But he’s not a big fan of real people dressed as Santa, probably because last year we got to take pictures with a scraggly-haird, toothless fat man who smelled like tobacco and sausage. (Our son actually turned to us after that encounter and asked us why Santa has no teeth! Eep!)
We play off Santa just like we do any mythological being. It’s a fun story, just like the Easter Bunny and magical wizards. Even as a two-year old, he seems to get it. We figure an active imagination isn’t a bad thing. If he ever asks, we’ll be honest with him. Santa might not exist as a corporeal person, but the spirit of giving and the willingness of people to be charitable at this time of year is very real.
Hope you got some good pictures! My boys didn’t even like looking at the “real” Santa from a distance, so I’m not going to even attempt getting them onto his lap for a picture. Stinks, too, because this one actually has a really nice (real) beard, good hygeine, and all of his teeth. Oh well.
Happy Holidays!
December 16th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
What?! Santa’s not REAL?!?!?!? I think a “spoiler alert” might have been appropriate in this instance, Ms. Laura!
I agree with the previous comments: Santa is a harmless fantasy that children outgrow — when little kids go to Disneyland and meet Mickey Mouse and think he lives there all year round it’s the same thing, and just a happy childhood memory.
December 16th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
lol, my bad!
December 16th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
My daughter had an interesting theory when she was three or four years old: she knew Santa was real, because she’d seen him at the mall. However, the Easter bunny she saw at the mall was a fraud, because he was just a person dressed up as a rabbit, not a real rabbit.
December 21st, 2009 at 7:30 am
Hey Laura, I just found your blog. It’s very real. I feel almost like a voyeur, but you are so open and honest and friendly that it’s more like an invitation from a new friend to visit their home. One comment on reading your story… you are quite right about the photos. Apart from the lovely one of your graduation, you appear to be growing younger over the years! That’s great and I hope as you start to grow older again (you will, I am afraid…) you do so with much happiness and satisfaction at a live well lived.
Love the story of Julieanne. It made me think of my little niece. She’s growing up with secular parents (my brother and his wife) and very religious grandparents (also my parents) who live right next door. It’s actually a really good arrangement. The kids have a wonderful time using both houses freely as they choose (breakfast with Gran and GP is the norm) and my parents had a much happier time than your experience; I think. They were missionaries (I was born in Korea) and then Dad was a minister and Mum the stay at home wife. But for them, it worked well and now in their eighties they are as much a team as ever. I love visiting them and we talk freely — even though I am now an atheist also. They are not fundamentalist, though, which certainly helps.
Back to the niece! She’s my new hero. Recently she lost a tooth, and she knows the tooth fairy will give money for a tooth under the pillow. However… she’s a skeptic (at age 5). She was talking to me about the big event, and mentioned that she wasn’t sure if there really was a tooth fairy. I was interested to hear more, and asked her what she thought.
Here’s what blew me away… she came up herself, there and then, with an idea to test her theory. She decided to count all Mum and Dads money. Then, the next morning, she could tell if that was where the money came from.
Woah! I was impressed with that. But I just said that sounded like a very clever idea. So she put it into practice. She told her Mum and Dad what she wanted to do. (I shall have to teach her about experimental control protocols later on, I guess.) They also were impressed, and in line with their own feelings on such things, they decided to be completely fair with her on this one. They told her nothing, but helped her find and count all the money.
The next morning, she had her brand new two dollar coin, as usual. And she went ahead and counted all Mum and Dad’s money. No cheating had taken place and sure enough… there was two dollars missing.
So now she knows… and she is pleased as punch at having figured it out. The hard bit was explaining to her that she couldn’t go ahead and just tell all her friends at school. (What do people think on that one, by the way?) Basically, however, she got it in the end. This is a game that parents play with their children, and now she’s in on the game too, and she shouldn’t spoil the game for other children. She now knows there’s a tooth fairy… and knows also who the fairy actually is! And it’s a secret, which other children will find out in time from their own parents.
December 21st, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Hi, Duae, thanks for stopping by! Your niece sounds adorable! And super smart, too! The tooth fairy thing is amazing!
December 21st, 2009 at 3:32 pm
You might enjoy the post “Santa–The Ultimate Dry Run” over at parentingbeyondbelief.com
http://parentingbeyondbelief.com/blog/?p=3507
December 22nd, 2009 at 4:48 am
That was excellent, thanks for the link!
December 23rd, 2009 at 8:24 am
That’s an awesome tooth fairy story. My kids know both santa and the tooth fairy are not real, but they are vehicles for great conversations about why we believe things are not real and to be able to articulate it. I take the roll of advocate that they are real. My kids are all, “Come on Dad…” and tell me I’m the tooth fairy. I explain that I can’t fly through windows, etc. It’s fun.