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I personally love fantasy and pretence, and will definitely instil this into my children's upbringing. However for some reason I really dislike the Santa Claus thing - to me it seems a 'real lie', rather than an imagined story for fun, because it's all acted out and truly integrated into the real world.

When my kids are old enough to understand, I want to tell them about the old tale of St. Nicholas, and that this is how he is remembered, in honour of Christmas day. And then, yes, I will probably give them some presents 'from Santa', but they will know the true story and how we are just re-enacting it - and hopefully enjoy that. (Re-enacting something doesn't take away the joy if done right!) But it doesn't need to be a lie, something that if you said 'Santa's not real' to a sibling your mum would tell you off. See, growing up in our family (and, I suspect, in most), it was a true thing taught to us in the same way that Jesus was taught to us... yes, we learned about Jesus all through the year, and Santa just at Christmas, but it was the same really. I didn't like that then and I still don't like it now. I remember as a child feeling cheated by my parents because it felt like it *couldn't* be true, yet they seemed to be telling it as though it was. I felt so little joy about Santa because it felt like a lie to me from the start.

(Incidentally I can almost always tell when people are lying - perhaps that was my problem!)

October 5, 2009 - 9:55am

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