We are a house divided on the Santa front. My boys don’t believe in Santa, but my girls do. Jafta is decidedly OVER Santa. This picture may give you an idea of his feelings on the matter:
And also this one:
Jafta is not impressed.
It’s funny that any of my kids believe in Santa, because I’ve never told any of them about him. I don’t have strong feelings against the Santa thing, but I also don’t love the idea of weaving a hugely elaborate lie. I’m conflicted, I’ll admit. We have a tree and we put out gifts but I’ve never suggested they came from a man who entered the house through the chimney. But all of them are in preschool and got quite a lesson there on this secular ritual, thank you very much Christian Montessori. So the Santa expectations were firmly set, and I played along. At least until the questions started getting to the point where I was having to dig deeper and deeper into a lie. For me, I kind of feel like once their reasoning skills enter the picture, the gig is up. I just can’t muster the energy to argue with logic. “No, dear, that drumset did not, in fact, fit down the chimney. Because Santa isn’t real.”
Okay, I don’t actually say that. I usually answer with, “What do you think?” and other such non-committal things, which means most of them realized pretty early on that it was a ruse. Except, oddly enough, India was a non-believer last year and then just decided to believe again. Earlier this month I gave the bigger kids a stern talk about not ruining it for Karis and India gave me an exasperated look and said, “I believe in him now, too!” Which is kind of awkward, but whatever. I’ll go with it.
How about your house? Did you tell your kids about Santa? Do you feel conflicted about the lie? If you kids are no longer believers, how did they figure it out? And how do you keep your non-believers from ruining it for others?
