The other day, a buddy of mine posted an article about how lying to your kids about Santa is bad for them. He agreed with the article. I disagreed. We’re still friends. No big deal. BUT at one point in the conversation he said, “I still have yet to find an
argument FOR perpetuating the Santa myth that is the least bit
compelling.”

AND I thought, “Challenge accepted. I am going to
convince this guy that the Santa myth is awesome.” I started to write a point by point rebuttal, and halfway through realized that it didn’t matter one bit. Trying to
convince people why they shouldn’t feel how they feel about something tends to become more of
an exercise in self-justification than a sincere effort to make a connection
with someone who sees things differently than you. I wasn’t really trying to convince my friend. I was just having fun writing about Santa. So I’m giving up any pretense
of trying to change my buddy’s mind, or anybody’s mind for that matter, and admitting that this post
is all about me. And my kids. And Santa… who. Is. AWESOME.

We play the Santa game. We tell the stories and
perpetuate the myth. We visit the guy in the mall, and at various company parties.
We make cookies and leave out milk. We stay up late after the kids go to bed
wrapping presents in paper we’ve kept hidden all month. We eat the cookies
they left out as messily as possible so our overzealous crumbs will provide the obvious clues needed to figure out that, indeed, Santa was here… and he’s kind of a slob. Why do we do it? What’s our compelling argument? It’s
fun. The kids enjoy it. Stevie and I enjoy it. 

And…

We like magic

Stevie and I feel that it is important for our kids to
believe in magic for a bit. We think that a belief in magical things is great
fertilizer for cultivating imagination in tiny humans. The magic of the world
will be removed by the curse/blessing of perspective soon enough. For these few
years we want to let them believe reindeer fly, and see where it takes them. Yes, some people will say that it is our job to drop as much reality on
our kids as possible so that when they’re eventually confronted by a world full
of it they have the faculties needed to cope – but I like to believe that
having that tiny memory somewhere in the back of my head of what it felt like
to believe impossible things were indeed possible is what helps me cope with
the harsher realities of being an adult.

We don’t mind lying

“But what about the lie? You’re lying to your kids?” Says
the imaginary person in my head I am arguing with.

If the worst thing I ever do to my kid’s is lie to them,
then I will be forever happy with my parenting score card. We lie to our kids
all the time. We tell them they are safe. We tell them we’ll never go away. We
make promises we know we may not be able to keep. And we do this to help them
feel secure, because the fallout from discovering the lie is less than the fallout
of dealing with the truth. 

Chances are that I’m not going to die any time soon,
so I tell my kids I’m not going to die. I tell my kids there is a Santa because
I believe that the joy they get from believing in Santa is more than the disappointment
they will feel when they discover the truth. Do I know this for sure? No, but I don’t really know anything for sure… not since becoming a parent.

Learning the truth is a great exercise in… learning the truth

I do know that, for me, discovering the reality of Santa was one of the first times in
my young life that I can recall gathering facts, exploring their validity,
questioning what I had been told, and finding out things weren’t the way I had
been taught. I wasn’t resentful of my parents for lying to me. I felt empowered
by the process of figuring it out, and excited to move to the other side of the myth. It felt like a right of passage. Yes, all of that is anecdotal. I don’t really care. I don’t need to.

You know why? 

We don’t have to dissect everything 

That may be my least favorite part of being a parent. Sure, this may not be a compelling argument, but it honestly doesn’t need to. Sometimes, when I’ve buried myself in facts and theories and arguments about what is and isn’t best for my kids, when I’ve kept myself up at night asking over and over if the choices I am making for them will break them or form them into happy humans, I come to the conclusion that no amount of advice will help. I just have to trust my gut. I just have to believe.

I believe in Santa. Not, that he exists, but that letting my kids believe that he does is better for them than making sure they know he doesn’t. I believe. And trust me, as a non-religious, science loving, fact finding kind of guy, that is hard for me to say. Well… it’s hard for me to say until Christmas morning when my kids run out to the tree yelling “Santa came! Santa came!” Then it suddenly becomes pretty a compelling argument.

Merry Christmas,

The Kinnears

P.S. Yes, my favorite Christmas movie is Miracle on 34th Street. Both the original and the remake. I love them both.

P.S.S If you want to give me a Christmas present, please come visit me on Facebook. It would make me tremendously happy.