Your question ‘What do you tell your kids about Santa Claus’ reminded me of this story. I wish I could give the author credit but I don’t know who it is. But he had a very smart and loving grandmother!

Is there a Santa Claus?
An Old Christmas Story

I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma.
I was just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my
bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the
bomb: “There is no Santa Claus,” she jeered. “Even
dummies know that!”

My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I
fled to her that day because I knew she would be
straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the
truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a
whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her
“World-Famous” cinnamon buns. I knew they were
World-Famous, because Grandma said so. It had to be
true.

Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm.
Between bites, I told her everything.

She was ready for me. “No Santa Claus?” She snorted…
“Ridiculous! Don’t believe it. That rumor has been
going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain
mad!! Now, put on your coat, and let’s go.”

“Go? Go where, Grandma?” I asked. I hadn’t even
finished my second World-Famous cinnamon bun. “Where”
turned out to be Kirby’s General Store, the one store
in town that had a little bit of just about
everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma
handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those
days.

“Take this money,” she said, “and buy something for
someone who needs it. I’ll wait for you in the car.”
Then she turned and walked out of Kirby’s.

I was only eight years old. I’d often gone shopping
with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything
all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full
of people scrambling to finish their Christmas
shopping. For a few moments I just stood there,
confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering
what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for. I thought
of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my
neighbors, the kids at school, and the people who went
to my church. I was just about thought out, when I
suddenly thought of Bobby Decker. He was a kid with
bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me
in Mrs. Pollock’s second grade class. Bobby Decker
didn’t have a coat. I knew that because he never went
out to recess during the winter. His mother always
wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough,
but all we kids knew that Bobby Decker didn’t have a
cough; what he didn’t have was a good coat.

I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing
excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat! I settled
on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked
real warm, and he would like that. “Is this a
Christmas present for someone?” the lady behind the
counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down.

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied shyly. “It’s for Bobby.” The
nice lady smiled at me, as I told her about how Bobby
really needed a good winter coat. I didn’t get any
change, but she put the coat in a bag, smiled again,
and wished me a Merry Christmas.

That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in
Christmas paper and ribbons and wrote, “To Bobby, From
Santa Claus” on it (a little tag fell out of the coat,
and Grandma tucked it in her Bible.) Grandma said that
Santa always insisted on secrecy.

Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker’s house,
explaining as we went that I was now and forever
officially, one of Santa’s helpers. Grandma parked
down the street from Bobby’s house, and she and I
crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front
walk.

Then Grandma gave me a nudge. “All right, Santa
Claus,” she whispered, “get going.” I took a deep
breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present
down on his step, pounded his door and flew back to
the safety of the bushes and Grandma.

Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for
the front door to open. Finally it did, and there
stood Bobby.

Fifty years haven’t dimmed the thrill of those moments
spent shivering, beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker’s
bushes.

That night, I realized that those awful rumors about
Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were:
ridiculous. Santa was alive and well, and we were on
his team. I still have the Bible, with the coat tag
tucked inside: $19.95.

May you always have LOVE to share. And may you always
believe in the magic of Santa Claus.

so…

Expect a Miracle!

Terry, you seem to be stating that anyone with holiday traditions different from your own must have parents who don’t love them. And people who don’t do the Santa thing just as you did must not be Christian. Just wow.

My parents gave me love, just as yours did, but they also gave me a couple of other gifts. They gave me joy in learning, which allowed me to learn the complex origins of the modern American Christmas traditions without destroying any magic. In fact, the differences between cultures and the ways that stories become traditions are magical to me today.

They tried to give me tolerance, and the understanding that just as there’s no one right way to cook a meatloaf, there’s no one right way to celebrate a holiday.

They also gave me a belief that life and good times don’t end with childhood, and that we should be sustained by more than memories in a world which, while terrible things happen in it sometimes, was created by God and not made by us at all. I too have wonderful memories of childhood. I also have wonderful memories of yesterday, and I hope tomorrow to have wonderful memories of today. A life where all you have to sustain you is memories of Santa from when you were tiny sounds pretty tragic to me. But you don’t really believe this. The last statement in your letter is that you always have a good holiday, so clearly God’s world isn’t consistently terrible to you as an adult.

There are still mysteries in the world, wonderful and awe-inspiring and far greater than the mystery of how a fat man fits down the chimney in an apartment without a fireplace. I agree with you that a belief in Santa can be valuable training in learning to feel that the world around you is full of wonder - but if that belief in joy and transcendence disappears when you learn about mom and dad putting presents under the tree, what is gained?

Childhood should be a delight, but the end of childhood shouldn’t be the end of delight. If it is, we have failed our children in an important way.

Oh, and not that it matters - but in our house, the “Santa presents” were never wrapped. They were there in plain sight so that you could be amazed at the sight of a new bike or a new baby carriage right as you walked into the room.

Merry Christmas to you too. Hopefully it will make your Christmas even happier to learn that even people with traditions very different from your own can have good holidays!

Terry:

Really? Not Christian because they didn’t learn about Santa? Seriously? You do know that Santa’s not real, and to tell your children he is to tell them a lie. A white lie, perhaps, but still a lie.

My parents, like the iDiva’s, never told us about Santa and if we asked (I can’t remember if any of my siblings did) they would have told us that Santa did not exist, but I have to guess they wouldn’t have encouraged to tell all our classmates that too.

The Christmas spirit was seeing my parents invite strangers (to us kids, anyway) into our home for Christmas dinner. The Christmas spirit was watching them support missionaries overseas with their limited means. The Christmas spirit wasn’t confined to around the holiday (which, by the way, is not the actual day Jesus was born), but a way of living that reflected our gratitude for what we had and could share with others. The Christ in the holiday was regularly attending church, tithing on our miniscule allowance, reading the Bible through and living a Christ-like life.

I don’t understand why parents encourage their children to believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy. I and all my college-educated siblings (in fact, I’m soon to be the only one in the family with just a bachelor’s degree - I’m such a slacker) knew the world was largely open to us because our parents implied it was so - not because of some mythical creature that is - for all the good intents around it - a lie.