It’s getting close to that time of year again when children are visited by Santa. At least, those who still believe in him are. For the others, maybe they get a visit from him with a nod and the wink of an eye. Or they get the same presents with a card from the person who actually bought them.
I’ve actually got a fair bit of flack over the years because SO, my wife, and I decided to tell Jay, our son, the truth about Santa. Well, actually, we never told him Santa was real at all. From his earliest days, we’ve let him know that Santa is a traditional Christmas figure, but that he doesn’t actually exist.
To understand why, you need to remember that SO and I come from different cultural backgrounds. In Indonesia, where SO grew up, they never did the whole Santa thing. Christmas was, and still is, a spiritual time, with the giving of gifts a minor thing that not many people did. So the question of Santa really never existed for them.
Of course, we could’ve gone with my culture and told Jay that Santa was real and do all the presents from him. And in some ways we still do, he gets just as many presents as he would if he got them from Santa. It’s just that they have our names on the cards instead of his.
Is this better than letting him believe? Or would he have enjoyed Christmas more if he believed? To be honest, I don’t think it’s made a difference. He still wakes up early, and I mean like 4a.m. early. He still gets overly excited. He still talks about it for weeks before, and weeks after. In other words, he’s just like I was at his age. The only difference being, he knows the truth.
Do I think everyone should do this? No, it’s personal decision, and to be completely honest, I’ve never heard of anyone being scarred for life by believing n Santa. Sure there’s the disappointment when we find out, but we get over it. My main question is, how much do we get out of those years when we do believe?
Oh, and if you’re wondering, we’ve told Jay that a lot of his friends probably still believe in Santa, so he needs to keep it a secret. So far, and he’s 9 now, he’s never let it slip to any of the other kids that Santa isn’t real.