What I will tell my Children about Santa Claus

Like the average 22 year old, I had never considered what I would tell my kids about Santa. I suppose my subconscious assumed I would just tell them he brought presents for them until they figured out on their own that he wasn’t real.

For some reason this year I began to think about the idea. I’m not going to tell you what you should tell your kids, but I want to try and show you why you shouldn’t tell your kids that Santa brought them presents.

It’s lying. Try and justify it however you will, you’re still lying to your kids. It’s easy to say “Well, it’s just a little lie that isn’t going to hurt them”, but I want you to think about something. Let’s say you tell your kids for years that Santa brought them presents, and then they find out that you were lying about that. It’s not a far reach in a child’s mind to wonder what else you lied about. What is they start to assume you made Jesus up as well, simply to get them to behave?

You may laugh at that logic, but I saw an Atheist’s post on facebook that read “Kids, when you find out that Santa isn’t real, remember what your parents always told you about Jesus as well.” Maybe my mind is more child-like than most, but I can completely see how a kid could make that jump from Santa to Jesus.

What I will tell my kids: You can’t just not talk about Santa, he is ingrained into our culture. I will tell my kids that he was a real person who lived centuries ago who gave gifts to the less fortunate. People like to dress up like him for fun and pretend. He doesn’t fly around on a sleigh, and Rudolph is a made up character, like in cartoons.

I will also be sure to tell my children the real meaning of Christmas, which is honoring Jesus. I will also make sure I show this to them by involving the entire family in giving to organizations such as Operation Christmas Child.

While it may seem trivial, I would advocate that you exercise caution when thinking about what you will tell your kids. Try and justify it how you will, telling your kids that Santa flies around the entire world and gives presents to others is still lying, and I don’t want my children to ever have to wonder if I am being truthful. (Reblog from Tumblr.com)