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Comment by tokai | Hacker News Reader

Why even invoke Santa?

This is a fair question. My youngest is 11 now, so the "Santa" days are behind me. It was part of my upbringing, it's fun, it's a big part of the culture, the share of kids who truly get nothing (which is absolutely heartbreaking) is small and invisible to those of us with any level of privilege.

Their mother and I didn't ask ourselves "should we do this?" -- we just did. Not everything in life is (or has to be) a rational decision.

Beacuase every single cartoon has a "Santa" episode.

Not every cartoon series.

https://www.abc.net.au/education/digibooks/dust-echoes/10173...

http://thedreamingstories.com/

etc.

People think the child like wonder and awe in the supernatural like tooth faeries and Santa are cute. Personally I remember the day I realized the Santa farce and I was quite disappointed and honestly felt betrayed. I never told my parents this but swore to never present Santa as anything other than a symbol if I had children.

The more heartening lesson one might take is that we can each infuse the world with delight, community, and excitement by consciously engaging in the traditions, rituals, and fantasies that provide those to us.

Rather than becoming disillusioned by learning that reality is so mundane that Santa doesn't even exist, one can become empowered by learning that whether or not the world feels mundane is something we can control ourselves.

Most kids won't be able to come to that conclusion on their own, of course, so it's a bummer that it seems like nobody was able to convey that to you and that you just felt pointlessly betrayed instead. I hope you've found other ways to teach your own kids the underlying lesson.

I don't know that engaging with santa as a symbol really jeopordizes this ideology in any meaningful way.

I had a similar experience when I was younger and made a similar resolve. Unfortunately my spouse considered it very important to produce and maintain this deception so I took a hands-off approach and simply didn't engage with the ruse.

I put presents under the tree with recepients addressed, but no from field.

When the children got old enough to actually ask me directly about it I told them the truth (and got some flak for it from my partner). Fortunately by that time other conversations I'd had with them about dragons, ghosts, and gods allowed them to integrate this knowledge in what I believe to be a pretty healthy way, but I've always felt uneasy about this casual dismissal of children's agency.

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