What Should I Say About Santa? A Parent’s Moral Dilemma

It’s 1987. I’m walking home from Grade 1 with my friend Josh. He’s excited, recounting his haul from Christmas. He highlights his best gift; a long-desired Nintendo from Santa. I seethe. “Santa is just your parents,” I say. “I know,” he replies, dying inside.

I grew up Jewish in a WASPY neighbourhood, so for me Christmas was like a movie I arrived late to. It was all around me, yet somehow incomprehensible. I sang carols at school, passed nativities on lawns, was bombarded by holiday songs on the radio and specials on TV extolling “the true meaning of Christmas", but none of it  belonged to me. To me, Christmas only meant one thing: presents.

I’m not saying I was deprived. We had Hannukah, which has its roots in many of the same pagan traditions that Christmas draws on, such as the importance of light near the winter solstice, and togetherness, and treats. But Hannukah gifts are typically small tokens, spread out over an eight day celebration, not the singular monolithic boon dreamed about since late summer. (Later in my childhood we negotiated a “save up” clause–no pun intended–whereby you could trade in a number of small gifts for one larger, but it still felt like a negotiation).

And the thing about Santa was that other kids believed in him. Like really believed. I mean, I loved Batman but I knew he was fictional. And spoiling Josh’s fun was vindictive, but also tough love. I shattered his illusion, but I helped him see reality.

It’s nearly 30 years later. I have a three-year-old and a baby, and my wife grew up with Santa, so the time is upon us to decide: should we tell our children that Santa is real? Is it worth it to create and maintain this fiction just to have to pull back the curtain in a few years? Is it even right?

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Not to overstate the case, but it feels like an especially pertinent question this year, when politically there’s a heated battle between the unpleasant truth and the comforting lie. I certainly know how I feel about that. But a “jolly old elf” who lives at the North Pole in a fantastical toy shop and has flying reindeer to pull his sled? That’s just the sort of magic and wonder that childhood thrives on. So do my philosophical beliefs trump my desire to construct a bubble of belief for my kids?

As with so many questions of tradition, or identity, or faith, I believe this problem of Santa is impossible to answer rationally. That’s tough to accept, because every choice you make as a parent feels permanent, and impossible, and as likely to be wrong as right. But neuroscientists will tell you that emotion is the greatest influencing factor in all decision making, either because some decisions are too nuanced for pure logic, or because many decisions are only relevant to our emotions. We all have to do what feels right.

I’m not sure what I’ll tell my daughter in the coming weeks. I know she’ll want to know about Santa, and we’ll have to make a choice. But whatever that choice is, I hope her world can always feel a little bit magical.