Wednesday, December 19, 2007

To Santa or Not

Yesterday I took Little Man to the mall. We waited in line for less than 5 minutes. I plopped my baby on the stranger's lap, got pictures taken, paid for them and we were on our way.

And the pictures, fwiw, are adorable.

But it brings to the fore the big question: do you perpetuate the myth of Santa (and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy) or do you tell your kid the truth? For this year, it obviously doesn't matter much. But starting next year, we need to make a choice.

I'll admit, I don't feel like I went through big trauma when I found out that the Santa gifts came from Mom and Dad, but I know some kids do. Do I continue to lie to my baby and say, "Santa yay!" because lets face it, Santa is about harkening to some time of childhood innocence? Or, do I just say the gifts are from us but don't ruin it for other kids.

So what do you all think? Santa or Not?

4 comments:

Stephanie said...

I think I shared my opinion on b.org already although our conversation gave me a lot of ideas about how to approach Santa. I guess I like the idea of telling Ellie that Santa is a fictional version of St. Nick who was a real person who gave gifts to people. I don't think I'll be buying presents from Santa or leaving out cookies, but I'm not going to be anti-Santa either. Having said that, though, I don't think I'll go out of my way to ruin the idea of Santa either.

Here in PR kids leave grass in a shoebox under their beds before 3 Kings Day and when they wake up in the morning, the grass (for the Kings' camels) is gone and presents have been left behind. I like that a bit more than Santa (because in the Christmas story the kings did actually bring presents) but it's not our culture so I don't think we will be doing that.

Julie SB said...

I vote for Santa. Mostly due to laziness. It's too hard to try to explain to Aidan that Santa isn't real when he can clearly see him in those pictures, on TV, in the chair. Because if I tried I'd have to explain that a lot of stuff he believes to be possible (like superheroes and that rain makes the trees laugh) could possibly go by the wayside too. I like that he can still imagine the possibilities that these things exist. Time when come eventually when the world starts to close in. Anyway, I like Santa. Although this year the only thing Aidan wants is already under our tree thanks to Tutu so he's not getting anything from Santa. I don't think he'll care who the marshmallow gun is from, as long as it is his.

badmommy said...

I hate to ask, Julie, but what's a Marshmallow gun?

rboston said...

I am one who is still bitter about the way the santa info went down as a child. that clearly influenced me to not do santa with mac, but he is choosing to go along with believing in his own way anyway.

I love the idea of santa as representing the Christmas spirit, but that is hard for kids to get.