Santa as the Ultimate Imaginary Friend

There are a million places to turn for advice on whether or not to celebrate the arrival of St. Nick, and on how to break it to your kids that Santa’s not real.  With all due respect to experts like this one, who say lying to your kids is never a good idea, I’m going in the opposite direction. After eight years of Santa-less-ness, our home will this year be graced by the Jolly Old Elf’s visit. 

My 8-year-old has always been utterly freaked out by the thought of Santa coming into our house in the middle of the night.  Even at age 2 he begged for reassurance that the whole story was a myth — and I was only too happy to oblige. 

His 5-year-old brother’s personality is just the opposite.  He loves the land of make-believe, and he has no problem believing that Santa can be 4 billion places at once, that reindeer can fly and that Rudolph’s nose really does light the way through snowstorms.

This year he had a tough choice between me (“It’s not a true story, sweetheart — just ask your brother …”) and society (“You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen …”).  He chose society.  My rebuttals didn’t upset him at all, because he was so completely sure I was wrong.

Finally my 8-year-old pulled me aside.  “Mom, he believes,” he said earnestly. “You can’t stomp on his beliefs.”

So this is how I find myself with a steep learning curve.  Not only do I have to make the myth real, I have to do it for a boy who has a very solid idea of what to expect (thanks to the extremely detailed illustrations by Cheryl Harness in his favorite book, The Night Before Christmas.)

My friends and coworkers are treating my situation with bemusement, sharing loads of advice about everything from the gift tag (printed out labels are best so he doesn’t recognize my writing), preparing reindeer food (dry oatmeal with glitter) and whether or not to give the 8-year-old a gift too (consensus is yes).  The elaborate planning that goes into Santa visits amazes me — like the mom who told me a neighbor offered to ring bells underneath her daughter’s window just as she was drifting off to sleep, with her parents at her bedside, to prove that they were not masquerading as Mr. and Mrs. Claus.

One of the best tips was to have my older son quiz the younger one on his expectations so that we could fulfill them to the letter.  Cookies?  Milk? Stocking location? I had a moment of panic yesterday when I realized I didn’t know whether our stockings, which my mother-in-law sewed for us 19 years ago, actually open.  (Relief — they do!) 

While some argue that lying to kids is never a good idea, my rationale is that this child loves pretend play.  He makes up stories about his pet chickens building air-conditioned palaces.  He creates elaborate plots to be acted out by his plush Angry Birds. His imaginary friends, Mr. Bench and Mr. Sench, talk to each other through his fingertips. 

Adding Santa to his magical world seems a perfectly rational holiday gift.

By Amy De La Hunt, Health Blogger for SmartParenting