I think it's no secret that I am not the biggest fan of the Santa myth. It feels wrong to me to be lying to my kids. There are a lot of wonderful things about Christmas time, and I don't think we need to invent fairy tales to put wonder and magic into the season. Of course, everyone says, "Oh, you have to do Santa! It won't be Christmas without Santa! Let her be little and believe in the magic!"
So far, I have been neutral on Santa. I haven't really told Sydney much about him, but I don't refute what others say either. Until one night a couple of weeks ago.
She had been having some behavior issues lately and one night t I told her, "You need to improve your behavior or you're not going to get anything for Christmas."
S: "Will you tell people not to get me presents?"
Me: "Yes, I will tell people and also Mom and Dad won't get you presents."
S: "What about Santa Claus?"
Me: "I will tell Santa not to get you any presents."
S: "How does Santa know if I'm having good behavior?"
At this point, I know I need to be very careful, because I know that the concept of Santa watching her is going to freak her out.
Me: "I will tell Santa about your behavior."
S: "Is he watching me all the time?"
OK, so obviously someone (probably at daycare) has introduced the concept of Santa watching. Great. I must tread carefully here.
Me: "Well, Santa will always know what you're doing and he only brings toys to good boys and girls and blah blah blah." Basically, I gave her a non-answer. That wasn't good enough.
S: "But is Santa watching me all the time?"
I tried for another non-answer, but she wasn't having any of that. She started to get upset. Crying, "I don't want Santa to watch me all the time! I will stay in my room all the time so he can't see me! How can Santa see me all the time? That doesn't even make sense! I don't even want any presents. I don't want Santa in my house. Tell him to stop watching me and stay out of my house!"
She was crying and upset and obviously terrified by the entire concept of Santa. I didn't know what else to do, so I came clean with her. I told her that Santa is not real, but some people like to pretend he's real because it's a fun game. But it's all just pretend and Mom and Dad really buy the presents.
Once I told her that, her attitude did a complete 180. She was suddenly happy and all was right with the world. This is obviously something that has been really bothering her. She is just too logical. The concept of Santa made no sense to her, and the disconnect was upsetting.
The next day, she came home from daycare and angrily told us that her teacher had told her that Santa is a real person, and she was very angry that we lied to her. We gently explained that the teacher was just pretending Santa was real because she didn't want all her friends to know. We explained that only adults are supposed to know that Santa is pretend, so she needed to help us keep the secret from her friends.
I then emailed the director of our daycare and explained the whole situation, and asked her to give the teacher a heads up on it. She wrote back and was very appreciative of my letting her know.
But then the next day at pick-up, the director took me aside and told me that the whole reason the topic had come up was that Sydney was whispering to all the other kids that Santa was pretend, and they were all getting upset!
So then we had to have yet another conversation with Sydney about not telling her friends. She got very upset that we were upset with her about this, but agreed not to talk about it at school anymore.
But interestingly, in the weeks that have followed, she has started to talk about Santa again as if she believes in him. If you press her, she will say that she is just pretending that Santa is real. But I think she kind of wants to believe that it's real. She seems to have made her peace with Santa and even sat on his lap when he visited her school this week.