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“parents can feel they’re outright lying to their children”

That is how it was for me. I was CRUSHED when I found out that my parents had lied to me about Santa. Plus it detracts from the REAL meaning of Christmas. So when we had kids I didn’t push it on them. I let them believe if they wanted to, and when they discovered it was not true about Santa, I didn’t try to convince them otherwise. Even then, later, when we discussed it, they all said that they didn’t like being lied to about Santa. They don’t like the whole Santa thing, just like I don’t like it. I think it was a big red suited guy with a name like Satan. Santa - Satan almost same word. Invented to detract from Christ birth.

While I oppose the sheer commercialization of Santa, I do not see anything wrong with Santa Claus.

We told our children that Santa Claus was a Christian Saint named Saint Nicolas who helps poor and needy children on behalf of God as we should always follow his example and help those less fortunate. We told them that if Santa has anything left over, he will give it to them.

This has allowed our kids to still be kids but have a deeper appreciation about the job Santa really does.

You and I may be rational and purists about religion but at the age of toddlers, it is nice to see this man (and not God or His Son) doing something nice for kids on behalf of God.

Just my opinion

When I was a wee little one, way back in the 60’s, there was a daily local ½ hour TV show with Santa. It was sponsored by a local automotive store named, I kid you not, “Joe’s - The Motorists Friend”.

Anyway, the Santa on this TV show as I can remember taught kids lessons on how to be “nice” rather than naughty, like listening to and obeying and respecting your mom and dad, keeping your room clean and tidy, respecting others, not lying and eating all your meals – the “Clean Plate Club” he called it.

I watched it with my mom every day.

And on Christmas Eve, this Santa would read from the New Testament about the “Real” meaning of Christmas.

I really believed he was the Real Santa. And one day my parents took me to “Joe’s - The Motorists Friend” to see this Santa. As I walked up to him, he smiled and said “Hello Gretchen.” I looked back at my mom and said, “Santa knows my name!”

My mom said “Of course he does honey, he’s Santa” but mom was just as equally surprised as I was as she had no idea how he knew my name.

As it turned out, although she didn’t recognize him in his costume and beard, my mom knew him from her younger days when she was an aspiring opera signer and performed on some local radio shows and he was also a local singer and actor.

Evidently she had run into him some years earlier and she had told him the names of her son and recently born daughter.

What was really amazing was that “Santa” remembered this and my mom after many years. Perhaps he really was Santa! I thought so and according to my mom, so did she for a moment.

As I got older and started questioning and figuring out the whole “Santa thing”, the magic of it all never really faded for me.

As an adult, I can now fully understand and appreciate the sacrifices my parents made to make Christmas special for me and my brother even in some years when they didn’t have much money to spend.

Many years later, when I was all grown up and married, my best friend’s five year old son was admitted to Johns Hopkins hospital right before Christmas for a very large intestinal tumor that the doctors felt was most likely malignant.

My friend was so upset and I asked her what I could do for her. Through her tears, she told me that she hadn’t finished her Christmas shopping for her son and four year old daughter. She was beyond consolation, thinking that this might be her son’s last Christmas, but at my instance, she gave me her children’s Christmas list and some cash and I went shopping. Most of the list was pretty easy but I soon ran out of the cash she gave me.

Her son had asked for a particular brand of sneakers that was very popular and very hard to find and more expensive than she anticipated.

I took a day off from work and traveled all across town, from store to store on a mission to find these sneakers and finally I found a pair in his size. They were expensive and I paid for them myself but really I didn’t care.

I just wanted to make sure that this family had a good Christmas and that despite everything that they were going through, that Santa would still come for their children.

Her son had surgery and his tumor was benign and he was released from the hospital on Christmas Day. When he got home there were presents under the tree for him and his sister.

My friend’s son is a happy and healthy young adult and currently in school working on a legal degree.

Do I still believe in Santa? Yes I most defiantly do!\