Santa Claus is Comin' to Town... or Is He?

Sprout & Aiden meet Santa for the first time

The other day I bought Sprout a book that's basically the lyrics to "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town". I thought it would be a great way to get him excited about the holidays & teach him the words to the song, as he'll probably memorize a lot of it once we've read it a few times. This is the first year that we'll be able to talk about Christmas & he'll start to understand more about the holiday.

Then I realized that though Oli & I have talked about it a bit, we've never really decided what to do about the whole Santa Claus thing. Do we tell Sprout the big myth (sorry for the spoiler if you didn't already know he's not real) with the lightning-fast flying reindeer who get Santa to every house on Christmas eve, the obese man sliding down chimneys & the Big-Brother-like omniscience? (Wow, that makes it all sound kinda creepy, doesn't it?)

Or do we avoid the big lie & just tell him that it's a story, that Christmas is really just about family & love & all that jazz? We're not religious--I'm an atheist & Oliver is more culturally Lutheran than a believer--so the conflict between baby Jesus & the big fat man in the red suit isn't an issue for us. Christmas for me is a great excuse to spoil children a bit, sing songs we all know the words to, eat homemade baked goods, drink eggnog & mulled wine, decorate the house & most importantly, spend time with family.

Thing is, as much as I don't want to lie to my kid, I remember believing in Santa. Sneaking upstairs after bedtime (as the eldest of three, I always had the basement bedroom), waiting for Santa's arrival. I remember listening for harness bells or hooves on the roof before I fell asleep. I also remember telling my 5-years-younger sister that the Santas in the malls were actually elves who worked for the real Santa Claus.

The story of Santa Claus is magical & wrapped up with so many great memories for me. It's also a very easy tradition to uphold, reinforced by tons of Christmas songs, movies, cartoons, books & even that NASA Santa tracking website in our culture. Why not lead Sprout to believe in magic for a few years, at least?

Did you grow up with the Santa Claus tradition? Did you continue it with your kids? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!



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