Our parents tols us from the beginning that there was no Santa, and I always appreciated that, so I wante dto do the same with my kids. But it doesn’t matter, they believe in him anyway! And now I think it’s cute.

I’m sure you will decide based from your own personality and your kids’ personality, whether how real and magical you will make Santa Clause be.

As a child, I believed in Santa Clause as the spirit of the big fat jolly man in red suit who does magic. Then I grew up and had different interests and priorities, Santa Clause became real in the form of people helping us in times of need and making our Christmases extra special. That is the Santa that I want my child to grow up in - from magical to real!

My kids all believed in Santa - and my six year old still does. I wouldn’t trade the fantastical memories I have of all my children’ s delight in Santa! I have many years of memories of seeing how they would talk about him as if he was real, ask questions about him as if he was real, trying to understand the reindeer, the sleigh, the coming down the chiminey, the North Pole, the elves … I love all the memories that are now attached to this precious myth and how it enriched our lives and the fantasy lives of my children. The BELIEVED he was real, I encouraged it and eventually they found out the truth and never have I ever heard a story where a child was upset, damaged or angry that they were not told the truth. They WANT to believe in Santa. The memories - alone - are worth it!! That’s my advise. Good luck, Summer. See ya.

I’m struggling with this right now too… I have a friend who’s son asked her if Santa is real… she asked if he really wanted to know. He said yes, so she told him. He cried and cried and cried. My oldest seems to be rather unsure… I don’t know if I should just tell him or let him figure it out… :S Not much help, am I??

I love Kellan’s response. I have no problems with my children believing in Santa Claus. I tell them Santa is real, because in my mind, Santa is the spirit of Christmas and giving. Children want to believe in the magic of Christmas and all that goes with it. They have that sweet spirit of love and giving inside them and I think that as parents we have an obligation to create a little magic for our children. When children then find out that Santa Claus “isn’t real” they still understand the magic of Christmas, and like Charlotte said, they can come to understand what Santa actually should represent: the act of giving and helping others.

Even as a college student, my mom had presents under the tree for my sisters and me that were from “Santa”. My older son has figured out the whole tooth fairy thing, but he still leaves his tooth under his pillow, because he loves the “magic” of it.

My parents let us believe in Santa and I still love “believing” in the magic of it. But we always knew the REAL meaning of Christmas! All children love the fun of thinking about Santa, and they will grow up soon enough… We usually let Santa bring the little stuff in the stockings and one more gift, and the rest are from us!

I think it’s great to teach our kids how to believe in things they can’t see. We’re just trying to focus on the Christ part of Christmas more. Santa is some fun on the side, you know? We have the nativity and pictures of Christ in our main living area, and all the more Santa oriented stuff in our basement rec room. It’s a nice balance and I’m quite happy with it.

p.s. I plan on having Santa bring the book and underwear. All the cool stuff is coming from mum and dad. Why let him take all the credit, eh? =P

The kids all believe in Santa, even Marissa my oldest, even though she knows the truth, and she still plays along, with the cookies and milk, and treats for the reindeer. It’s all in fun, and I don’t think her finding out, really changed anything.

My children know that he was a real historical figure and they respect his heart and character. They understand that now these are folks who are in costume trying to keep the heart of Christmas alive.

Our kids know that Blaine and I are Santa’s ‘helpers’ and when they grow up, they will get to be Santa’s helpers too.

As we had no real fireplace when they still believed in him, we had a magic key that weput around the door knob on Christmas Eve. It is a magical key in that it only opens our door when Santa uses it. He would always bring it in and set it down next to the plate of cookies and a note written in his own fancy writing to the kids.

He only fills our stockings and mom and dad get all the credit for the ‘good’ gift.

I like keeping childhood magical and sweet.

Yes, Santa is definitely real at our house. Sometimes it’s the only way I can get the kids to behave!

Yes, Santa is real at our house. And hopefully he’ll continue to be for a long time - or at least as long as we can possibly make it. I love that the kids have something wonderful like Santa to believe in.

I’ve been wondering the same thing. I tend towards having him not be real. I had bad and good experiences with thinking Santa was real as I grew up. I hate how so many shows or books have children think that if they “believe” hard enough he is real, and then they later find our that it’s all a lie. Seems like a bad pattern to teach to kids. I also hated how Santa can be used as a punishment, ie. one of our friends (her initials are BM) got coal in her stocking one year because of some minor infraction. She cried, and cried and cried.
I really, really like Donetta’s approach of teaching about Santa as the historical figure, and they know the rest are representations.

Santa is real. I still believe in him. And I can’t wait until my son is old enough to believe in him too.

I say don’t spill the beans. They grow up so fast, let them have their fun for the few years of innocence they have.

Of course, for some reason, I always felt a tinge of sadness for kids when they still believe. I guess it is because they are SO thrilled about a person who really doesn’t exist. However, now that my kids are in the believing ages, I feel less sad and more excitement with them.

My Mom always told us the truth, since she hated the idea of really lying to your kids. But we always tended to just believe what we wanted anyway, since it was fun. Kids like to pretend, and even if you tell them the truth, they tend to just have fun anyway. I think this will be the approach in our house. The truth is, whether it’s a man coming down your chimney in the middle of the night (which is actually kind of a creepy thought) or loving parents, they’re getting toys, right? Win win.

As long as the kids believed in Santa the spirit of Christmas and the North Pole lived on. “Believe” and there would always be presents under the tree. That was the make believe part of Christmas. The real part of Christmas was celebrating the birth of Jesus. We spent December reading stories about Jesus and acting out the first Christmas.

Kids have something magical to believe in without Santa, they have the truth to believe in! Caring and giving are not only avaliable from the Santa story. Without Santa we can have giving and caring and the true spirit of Christmas. We can celebrate Jesus Birth. Happy Birthday Jesus. Young children can learn that the things we do, picking out gifts, making gifts, wrapping gifts, decorating, baking, cleaning can all be dedicated to the gifts we received from Christ.

When my children asked if Santa was real I told them that it is fun to pretend. I never told them he was real. I talked to them about the spirit of Christmas. My oldest children have expressed to me that Santa is an antichrist because he takes attention away from Christ.

Reading stories and pretending are fun and important activities for young children. Telling them that Santa is real is a lie. We can share the history, tell stories of caring people through the ages, let them pretend that some man brings gifts during the night, enjoy the spirit of christmas without lying to our children.

Telling your children that there is a Santa may not cause harm to your children but it may cause harm to our spirits.

I like the idea of service to others and setting personal goals as a gift to Christ. It seems more motivating to me than setting New Years Resolutions; more of a permanent change.

I have been suprised at times at the effort that some people put into keeping the Santa story “real” for their children, and how long they try to keep their children believing. I think the children start playing along so that the parents won’t be sad that the children don’t believe.

I know it’s not an easy decision, but I’ll share my experience. I came to know the Lord when my daughter was little. I felt like I should tell her that Santa was not real and that we need to look toward Jesus.

So, I told her the truth. To this day I’m sorry I did. As she got older, she told me how much she wished I hadn’t done that.
JMHO

Well, we’ve kind of gone with the historical figure approach at our house… which resulted in an interesting outing at the mall. I still feel like I’m flying blind on this one, so I’m not much help - LOL. My last post is actually sort of about this topic and my daughter’s unique take on it : )