Last week we talked about how you spin Santa to your kids, but what do you do when either a) your child stops believing in Santa, or b) your child is getting old enough that you know it’s inevitable that they find out about Santa?
I do not have any advice about this, as my older child (aka the Junior Cynic) never thought Santa was real, so there was no discovery process. (One year my uncle dressed up as Santa in an extremely realistic costume, and my son played to it, but then tell me he knew it was just someone dressed as Santa! And this was pre-preschool.) There are just my stern admonitions that since it seems that his brother wants to believe in Santa, deliberately telling the younger one that there’s no Santa would be the end of any presents from me at Christmas, because meanness isn’t tolerated.
And the younger one still likes the whole Santa thing. Last year he definitely thought Santa is a physical person. We’ll see if he thinks Santa is a real human person still this year. He’s good with pretend and with ambiguity, so I predict that he’ll just transfer his belief from a physical man to the spirit of fun without any trauma.
But if you have a child who is more black and white, how did you deal with the day of Santa reckoning? Or what are you planning to do? Is your plan different if there are older or younger children in the house? Does how you think about finding out about Santa have anything to do with how you found out about Santa?
Does it seem like a passage? Another way your child is growing up and away from you? Or is it just another stage with no emotional resonance?
I say Santa is always real in that at the very least Santa represents that Christmas Feeling that makes us all want to give more than we receive, which is harder to remember the rest of the year.
When he was young I always suggested Noah ask around and draw his own conclusions. Now that he’s 10 and certainly knows, he seems to be taking a “don’t ask don’t tell” approach. It’s probably partly to protect Zoe, who is 5 and in full-on Santa mode, but I think there might be a part of him that is also happy not examining it closely.
When Soleil was 4 and Luna was 2, one of their preschool friends asked if Santa was coming to their house. Soleil replied “No we are Jewish”. Without missing a beat the friend said, “Oh, Jewish people must be bad because Santa doesn’t go to bad people’s houses”
Soleil then wanted to know if Jews were bad. We explained that it was a Santa secret and that Santa was really the parents and family. We explained the story of St. Nicholas (which kills me that he is also the patron saint of sailors- Ar!), how the Christmas spirt is alive in the idea of surprising children with gifts from “Santa”, and then told them they couldn’t tell a single Christian friend. They haven’t yet.
I love your kids’ names (or Internet pseudonyms, as the case may be…)
My 10 year old told me the other day he wanted a DSi for Christmas, and that if he didn’t get it, he knew Dad & I were “Santa”. Never mind the fact that he got a new DS for his birthday in MAY.
We watch the Polar Express, and they believe for a while… (my 14 yo has stopped believing, but I think he still WANTS to believe that magical part of Christmas)
It followed quickly on the tooth fairy realization for Mouse – she asked at the dinner table one day “hey, is the tooth fairy you guys?” and we said yes, but if she agreed it’s a fun game we could continue to play it. 2 or 3 days later, she said “so if you’re the tooth fairy, are you santa and the easter bunny too?” and we just said yes again, but that Santa is kind of special – only the people who are in on the secret can actually have the most fun in the Santa game, which is being Santa for others. But you can’t tell someone it’s a game until they figure it out themselves. She loves it being a game and plays it with even more zeal than when she believed, with a conspiratorial smile. Painless, we got away with one on this one.
Our oldest definitely believed in Santa until a few years ago. I don’t know what brought an end to it, really, but being the oldest of not only this family but all the cousins as well, he’s definitely under strict orders to not ruin things for anyone else. (I think he came close to slipping a couple years ago, and my SIL put the kabosh on that one QUICK, ha ha!) Our middle is 5 and I don’t know where he stands this year. It will be interesting to see how things go.
We ENJOY Santa but it’s such a balance, believing that Jesus is “the reason for the season” and really not wanting Santa and getting presents and all the materialism that can be shoved down our kids throats this time of year — not letting that take over. I’ve found we really have to WORK to keep things focused where we want them to be — celebrating the birth of Christ versus the guy in the red suit. That being said, there really is nothing like the magic of Christmas in a child’s life, and I almost can’t say “Santa isn’t real” out loud, certainly not to their faces. I won’t take the wonder and joy of the season out of my kid’s lives. So, we remind them what Christmas is really all about, and enjoy the magic as well.
I’ll be reading replies to this post veeerrrrry carefully. My 8.5yo son is a true believer. We are Catholic, and he knows that Christmas is when we celebrate Jesus’s birth. But he’s an equal-opportunity believer…he embraces everything from the Greek gods to the Judeo-Christian one to the magic of the Harry Potter’s wizarding world to Santa to…you name it. I’d be fine letting him believe as long as he wants, but I fear some meanie at school will tell him first, in a soul-crushing way. I bet many of his peers are no longer believers, and I don’t trust them to be gentle about it.
I’m torn. Do we tell him ourselves, making it as gentle and conspiratorial as we can? Or do we let him believe as long as his peers let him?
Tine, this is EXACTLY the way I feel with my 8.5 year old. He is a believer in magic, he loves Santa and talks about him as if he were his personal friend, We have two younger boys who I think will understand that Santa isn’t real long before him. But there is a part of me that is worried that someone is going to blow this up for him in a heartbreaking way, and I feel responsible for protecting his naivite.
In my heart, I know he doesn’t want me to tell him, and that he will believe in him for a long time. In reality, I can foresee a day when he comes home from school devastated and angry with me for allowing him to believe in something that’s not real.
I love hearing how so many people never had that day, and can’t remember when they discovered Santa wasn’t real, because I personally can’t and that gives me hope that he will not be traumatized. As a mom, however, I feel like I am holding all the cards and this can play out so many different ways.
This doesn’t answer the questions posed, just sharing my experience: I was a Jehovah’s Witness until I was 11 years old, so I grew up knowing that Santa wasn’t real (along with the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy). I also never celebrated a birthday until I was 13, so I was determined that my kids would grow up believing in the “magic” of Santa, celebrating birthdays, etc. That may seem silly to some, but I always felt like I was missing out during the Holiday seasons, seeing how excited my friends would get. My daughter is 4, and believes in all of those things. My two brothers-in-law both have developmental disabilities, are 33 and 39, and still believe in all of those things, as well. Holidays are so much fun with them, and I worry about the day my daughter finds out the truth and whether she’ll keep it from her uncles. I’m also pregnant right now, and with the age difference between my daughter and soon to be son, I know she will stop believing before he does, and I don’t know how I’ll handle that. Hopefully it will be several years down the road and I’ll figure something out by then.
@Charisse, I’m totally stealing what you said for when the time comes!
And I’m also partial to this answer for the truth about Santa:
http://www.cozi.com/live-simply/truth-about-santa