‘Tis the season for parents everywhere to fret about Santa Claus. If their children are very young, they may wonder if they should engage them in the Santa myth. But if their kids are older, they wonder if they told them a lie that could scar their relationships. Am I a bad parent? they worry.

It doesn’t help when an article in The Federalist appeared in which the author proclaimed, “I Won’t Lie to My Kids About Santa Claus.” Writer Jordan Boyd started with this:

“I’ve made up my mind. I’m not going to lie to my future children about Santa Claus.”

“Call me a grinch, a Scrooge, or even a communist, as one of my colleagues recently joked, but I refuse to sacrifice my kids’ trusting relationship with me over a fat man with a beard.”

She admits that she doesn’t have children. Honey, call us when you have your parental bona fides, m’kay?

Last year a writer for Cafe Mom told the story of how a nine-year-old spilled the Santa beans to his classmates, as well as his younger siblings. The results were traumatic, apparently:

“The parent said the children been “crying over it” for days, which has created quite an awkward situation in a lot of ways.”

Awkward, indeed. The mom said that the other mothers were quite put out with her.

If I rolled my eyes back into my head any further, they’d be permanently stuck.

How I Learned the Awful Truth

I got the lowdown on the jolly fat man when I was 6. But it didn’t come from my parents, it came from my teacher.

I attended a very tiny Lutheran school in my northern Indiana hometown. The teacher who taught the 1st/2nd grade classes was an older woman: tall, stern, and the wife of a retired pastor. She tolerated Santa Claus, but one song really irritated her. It was “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town,” which was played on every local radio station at Christmastime. For her the most egregious lines were these:

“He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good …”

One day she reminded the class of the Christian truth that only God is omniscient. And then she lowered the boom:

“There is no Santa Claus!”

The decades since have clouded my memory, but I distinctly remember my classmates dropping their jaws, their eyes bulging wide as they stared at each other and gasped. It looked like the scene in Miss Shields’ class from A Christmas Story when the fire department and police showed up to pull Flick’s frozen tongue from the flagpole.

Giphy.com. 

It didn’t bother me, though. Of course when I got home I told my mother what Mrs. A__ had said, and she confirmed that truth. But then she reminded me that I had a younger four-year-old brother, and let’s keep it a secret from him, okay?

That was awesome! My mother had pulled back the curtain just a little into the world of adults. I felt special! The heck with Santa!

Besides, I never liked sitting on Santa laps in department stores, anyway. They always creeped me out.

Should Mrs. A___ have spilled the beans about Santa? Probably not — that’s the responsibility for parents. But she did make it clear that as Christians our focus should be on God, not cultural myths.

So there was no trauma for me, and no tears, even at the tender age of six.

Kids Tend to Figure Out Santa on Their Own

Most kids learn the unvarnished truth about the Fat Man without much distress. At some point they’re old enough to know “how it works,” as Kevin McAllister said in Home Alone.

My husband recalled how he gradually deciphered the Santa riddle. He knew that Santa came down the chimney with his gifts, but the first house he lived in as a small boy didn’t have a fireplace. On top of that, there was one year when his dad brought his friend “Santa” over to visit the kids — and Santa smelled like beer. Not quite the genteel Father Christmas.

Both our children figured out Santa on their own, without anguish. In fact, our older daughter — I believe she was around six — had lost a loose tooth on the playground during recess. Upon picking her up from school, I assured her that it wouldn’t be a problem for the Tooth Fairy.

She replied:

“Mom, there is no tooth fairy. Or Easter Bunny.”

“Oh. Well, what about Santa?”

She thought for a second.

“No Santa?”

“No.”

“Okay.” 

No Santa, no problem. That same daughter now has children of her own, and she told me that our ten-year-old grandson has long assumed there is no Santa. But he’s being a good big brother for our granddaughter, who just turned six, by not dishing the dirt on SC.

Dear Santa Scolds, Please Stop Shaming

Kylee Griswold is another writer for The Federalist, but she disagrees with her colleague Jordan Boyd about Santa. In an article entitled, “I’m Glad My Parents Lied to Me About Santa,” Griswold wrote:

“In a predatory world that insists on telling kindergarteners about sex, scares kids with a virus that is virtually no harm to them and causes their brains to age prematurely by keeping them isolated at home, peddles puberty confusion and irreversible transgender interventions to minors, encourages those same minors to get abortions, and markets nicotine, smartphones, and porn to them like candy, cultivating youthful innocence and fancy seems a suitable antidote.”

Griswold also grew up in a Christian home in which her parents deftly balanced the fantasy of Santa with the certainty of the faith. Just like my parents did, and my husband’s parents, too.

She concluded:

“People of good faith can dream up a multitude of reasons to dispose of Father Christmas, but I for one am glad my parents lied to me about Santa. One of the most precious and enduring gifts they ever gave me besides the truth of the Savior was the wonder and whimsy of growing up.”

Santa scolds — just stop. If you don’t want your children to enjoy the myth of Father Christmas for an all-too-brief time in their lives, then go for it. You be you. Just spare the rest of us your sanctimony.

Featured image: Norman Rockwell. “The Discovery,” 1956. WikiArt/cropped/Fair Use.