Dealing with the Santa Dilemma

I was reading an article this morning about the Santa dilemma; should you tell your children the truth or not?  The article suggested that allowing a child to believe in Santa is a "rite of passage," and that they'll find out the truth soon enough from other children.. In other words, don't burst their bubble.

I had a conversation on a similar topic with a colleague last Friday.  Her older child doesn't believe in Santa anymore and wants to inform his younger siblings.  She asked for my advice since my daughter is now grown, and I can share the outcome of my decisions with her.

Because of my own upbringing, I decided to tell my daughter the truth about Santa from the start.I was raised to believe in Santa, and I can still remember how devastated I was when I learned the truth.  I felt completely betrayed, hardened even.  I thought to myself, "If my mother lied to me about something as important as Santa, what else has she lied to me about?"  It turned out that the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny were just the beginning.

So, I decided to tell my daughter the truth from day one, and now she has decided to play the Santa game with her daughter.  Maybe it just goes back and forth; if you were told the truth, you lie to your kids, and if you were lied to, you tell the truth to your kids.

I guess it has become a bigger dilemma than ever because of the economy.  How do you tell your child that Santa is broke this Christmas?  Should the bad economy be the springboard for telling your child the truth?  Should you go into credit card debt just to keep the deception alive?  Maybe a good solution would be to tell your children that Santa is "going green" and making homemade gifts this season.

One thing I will say is that the more you prolong telling your child the truth, the more damage you may do.  I once had a third grader completely fall apart in class and convulse on the floor because one of her classmates blurted out, "Santa Clause isn't real!" and I didn't deny his claim when she asked me point blank.  I simply shrugged my shoulders and told her to refer the issue to her parents.  I mean, this child almost needed to see a therapist.  Somewhere around 7-8 years old seems to be the time to delicately let your child in on the truth before the world abruptly foists it them without your knowledge...