Parents and Santa

And I don't really care who gets the credit for the good gifts. I just love seeing their eyes wide open - like last year. I had a big box and in it, I taped pictures along the inside of the box (plane, plane tickets, Disney, hotel, etc.) and then a note with the details of their Christmas trip to Disney. I just love the surprise and smiles when you come up with a really good one.

0 Replies

@saab,

Last Christmas when my daughter questioned again if Santa was real, I wrote back a note like what you said - Santa is the spirit of Christmas and the spirit of Christmas lives in your heart and left it at that. She then noticed that my handwriting was on all the tags from Santa and concluded I was Santa. She even told her younger sister - but her younger sister "forgot" and wanted to visit Santa again and believes again. I think children decide on their own when they are ready to move Santa in the spiritual feelings from an actual living being.

0 Replies

Sometimes I really think the NYT is keeping tabs on us for ideas... anyway, lookie here:

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/the-truth-about-santa

My gal Alison Gopnik (LOVE her):

Quote:

Contrary to what we once thought, even the youngest children are adept at distinguishing imagination and reality. Children may seem confused about the distinction because they are such vivid, emotional pretenders. But psychologists have discovered that children know that pretending and imagining are different from reality " that you can’t write with a pretend pencil or eat an imaginary hot-dog and that no one else can see the fairies and monsters.

Even the youngest children know that pretending and imagining are different from reality.

Why do children love imaginary figures like Santa Claus, then? Because they like to pretend. And when children pretend, they are exercising the evolutionarily crucial human ability to envision alternative ways the world could be. In adults that ability is at the core of our very real capacities for invention and innovation.

At the same time, though, young children often take what adults say seriously. Children are particularly likely to believe what adults say if they have what looks like firsthand evidence. The psychologist Jacqui Wooley introduced 3- to 5-year-old children to a Santa Claus-like figure called the Candy Witch who gave children candy at Halloween. About half the children said the Candy Witch was real, but that number increased if the children saw the candy the witch had left. The disappearing cookies and milk may be what convinces children that Santa is real.

Children will happily and convincingly engage in the lovely pretend game about the benign old guy with the reindeer, without necessarily thinking he’s real. That sort of play is one of the great joys as well as benefits of childhood. But they may also end up thinking that Santa really exists with a sufficiently straight-faced adult armed with disappearing milk and cookies. That belief won’t do them any harm either, after all most adult Americans believe in the supernatural.

My policy, however, would be to imagine Santa along with the children as fully and whole-heartedly as you can, and when it comes right down to it, explain that he’s only an invention of the human mind. Christmas, after all, is about fire, feasting, music, stories and hope, which are all human inventions.

3 Replies

@sozobe,

Quote:

At the same time, though, young children often take what adults say seriously.

Yeah.

There was that time when 3-year-old Yaya was complaining at bedtime that she wasn't tall enough to do something.

So I started pretending to stretch her legs.

Do not ever do this with a three year-old.

Just, don't.

1 Reply

@sozobe,

There was also an article in the WSJ today on the advantages of children and pretend stuff like Santa and toothfairy - unfortunately I haven't the time to read it other than the initial paragraphs.

0 Replies

@DrewDad,

My daugther at two - was told when trying to catch a ball to keep her eye on the ball. She looked at us in confusion and then proceeded to put the ball on her eye.

0 Replies

@sozobe,

We discussed the santa question at the lunch table yesterday at work.

bah humbugs lost 10 to 1.

What people DID think was that it was wrong, if a child asked you point blank to tell them the truth, to lie.

2 Replies

@dlowan,

Even if it would shatter the sense of reality? How ever twisted that reality is in believing in something?

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

I agree with Robert's rant, or think I do - in that in my own experience Santa was no different than the religious things I was learning and I was shocked when a friend told me (I must have been eight, but I was pretty isolated) that there was no Santa.

I won't pin it down to that, that now I am rare among my friends and associates for lack of interest in fantasy (as opposed to imagination of possibility), as these things are complex. It took me a long time to move out of religious belief, and I have an underlying level of still being pissed about all that, while my sensible self understands the teaching. If I look back more closely, I see it was my mother and not my father with the santa stuff, and as an older inexperienced mother with an only child she was trying her best to make me a happy childhood. And the same with religion, in a way, to make me know about god for my own welfare.

On the thing about fooling kids, I would have liked to have a glimmer much earlier than I did that things could be made up and enjoyed for that. Life became more interesting as I understood that.

0 Replies

@sozobe,

sozobe wrote:

I think there's some sort of in-between area. Sozlet and I have always talked about fantasy stuff in a way that is different from reality stuff but isn't utterly dismissive of the fantasy.

I can see that.. didn't happen in my experience, ever.

0 Replies

@ehBeth,

I don't either. Once in a while I say I'm not religious and leave it at that. I'm more clear when there is a context for talk, say on a2k, or with friends who say they aren't religious either. This could change in situations where I feel someone is abusing others with their beliefs.

Mini tangent, on my trip with my cousins, they are both religious and right wingish. We have declared convivially that we are who we are by now. We'll see how it plays out. The trip went well, but we were all needy of getting together. Time will tell.

0 Replies

This morning in a Danish paper was an article about Santa.
The majority over 50% think you should incourage your children to believe in Santa. How much over 50% varies depending on where in Denmark you live. Interesting enough it had very little to do with your political views.
Two psychologists support this and think it is good for children to believe in Santa.
Then a professional Santa was asked and he agreed on that for children as well as grown ups Santa is fun and good.

0 Replies

@Seed,

I think that if asked point-blank there are ways to look for clues rather than being bald. Like saying, "What do you think?" when asked.

As in, not lying, but not saying yes or no until you get more clues about what they think and hopefully (clue-wise) what answer they prefer for now.

1 Reply

@sozobe,

Exactly - most parents can "read" their child - like when they really want to know or when they really want to still believe. My older children wanted to believe longer than most children - there were obvious clues - like she would tell me how she remembers when she was younger and she woke up during the night and saw him. That was the time when she asked - is Santa real and when I asked as sozobe suggests - what do you think?

In the past year, though she asked again and she said no I really want to know. I think the year before she knew, but wanted to still believe and now she is more mature and "ready" to not believe. She isn't the least bit tramitized that she once believed and doesn't really say much to tell her younger sister otherwise. I let them decide on their own when they are ready.

1 Reply

@Linkat,

We had that conversation with Keetah (4) this year, except it was about Rudolf.

She was trying to reconcile why there were sometimes eight reindeer, and sometimes nine.

She really seemed to want a definitive "yes" as to whether Rudolf is real, and got kinda peeved when we wouldn't give it.

1 Reply

@DrewDad,

finding out about Santa wasn't that big of a deal to me.

(now the whole Tooth Fairy thing, that was traumatic as hell)

0 Replies

@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

We discussed the santa question at the lunch table yesterday at work.

bah humbugs lost 10 to 1.

I'd expect nothing less. If much more harmful cultural rituals like female (or male for that matter) circumcision, foot binding and the like could have such strong appeal in the cultures that practiced them it's not surprising that a much less harmful ritual is thusly supported in a culture where it is widely practiced.

The prevalence of the ritual itself tells you it's socially acceptable. There's an enormous amount of marketing behind it that will likely keep it this way for some time and spread it around. But to me as an outsider (never believed in Santa) the social acceptance doesn't change how I perceive it, and when you see tropical nations without any snow, sleds, reindeer or chimneys buy into it after exposure to Western media it's becomes even gaudier. It's not even a good fantasy or a cultural heritage at that point, and it's even more obviously driven by crass marketing.

But that being said, my objections to it are really slight. The ethics of lying isn't even the biggest qualm with it, it's the discouragement of skepticism in a culture. My qualm with the stork, the cabbage patch, the Easter Bunny, the Abominable snowman, and Santa are similar in this way. I object mostly to the misinformation and propagation of cultural myths.

I can't really say how much enjoyment might be derived from it to offset the qualm I have for it, but I suspect most of the enjoyment comes from the presents and their wishes and anticipation. If you take away the presents I bet kids don't get much of a kick out of the charade.

2 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Yep...the presents are what make it run, for sure.

I have to say that there was a lot more pleasure in the fantasy for us as kids than just that, though.

We were fascinated by the whole lore of the North Pole and the elves and reindeer and all.... We'd imagine what Santa's home was like...and what the elves were like, and how cool flying reindeer would be!

The ritual of leaving out food and drink for Santa was great. We would also leave out carrots and such for the reindeer.

Then we'd DESPERATELY try and stay awake to hear Santa arrive...but never did. It was as much fun as leaving out objects for my toys (which I believed came alive at night) to leave little foot or paw prints in! (They always avoided the traps with ease, sadly.)

Checking on how much Santa had eaten was the first thing we did in the morning, before shaking the presents.

There was sadness, too, though.

I knew the most important Santa deputy was in John Martin's store, where the magic cave was. Everyone knew this, because they sponsored the wonderful (to little kids) Christmas Pageant, which delivered Santa to the store.

I knew that the Santas in other places were kind of secondary deputies, but I couldn't BEAR to see any of them alone and not having kids around them. I imagined that these guys (who were likely heaving sighs of relief at having a moment away from bloody kids!) were feeling forlorn and unloved, and would insist on a mercy sit on their knees.

You're right about how weird and tawdry the accoutrements of a northern hemisphere winter solstice ritual look in the heat, though!

2 Replies

@dlowan,

I missed all that. I was three as wwII was ending.

We had big differences in our experiences, dlowan.

I was pretty good for a walk outside and even across an intersection (I remember it, walking with my mommy's hand).

Nothing at all about Santa in my early life. That happened with the city/suburban years.

0 Replies

@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

You're right about how weird and tawdry the accoutrements of a northern hemisphere winter solstice ritual look in the heat, though!

Hence 6 White Boomers.

1 Reply

Parents and Santa

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know