Letters to the Editor
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Totally different perspective
I was either 5 or 6 and I really can't recall if I had been told earlier, my mother was trying to tell me and my younger brothers all about Santa Claus and it just didn't seem right to me. You see I had been reading fairy tales for a couple of years by then and I knew one when I heard one. She insisted on continuing to say, Santa is real, you sit on his lap in the mall, just trying to insist Santa was real to me. I was very very angry at my mother for trying to lie to me and tell me Santa was a real person when I knew he was just made up to teach a lesson. I can still recall screaming at her to stop lying to me and I can remember how shocked she was that I didn't believe like all the other little kids (I was also in advanced gifted classes in elementary school, I had already skipped a grade, so your 13 yr old can't really believe in Santa unless she never watches TV, oh and as someone who went through the gifted and talented program and AP courses and graduated early, I can honestly say I'm not that smart, just good at following directions and memorization)and so she apologized and promised to never lie to me again. So instead she made the comparison to when I was playing pretend with my toys, she would still tell me about the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy, even though I knew it was her so I would play along after she said it was all for fun.
I'm perfectly fine with stories and a rich fantasy life, I still love a good fairy tale. I just think it's very dangerous to mix them in with reality. It's like telling children that they should automatically believe everything they hear because it comes from a person of authority.
Christmas time is my favortie holiday and selecting, wrapping and giving gifts to others is one of the most sublime joys I experience every year. I give to charity and to friends who've never given me anything in return, I love Christmas and I didn't need a belief in an actual Santa to bring that love and generosity of spirit.
Believe in magic, I still love fairy tales and greek myths and Harry Potter has a special place in my heart, but I've always known that they are two seperate worlds. I love superheros and comics and cartoons to this day, so no innocence was robbed from me simply because I knew Santa was a storybook character. I was never taught that I had to give up certain things just because I'm older. I often notice that there are plenty of people who prefer to hear a nice lie than the truth that may not be so nice, which is why our politicians never can be really honest, because our constituency does not allow it. The public wants nice stories and policies that sound good but produce no real results. You know, like abstinence education and GPSing molestors for life and 3 strike laws and the unwinnable drug war.
So I don't know if there is a connection, but on the chance there is, there is no way I will tell my kids Santa is a real live person, I will tell them the story of St. Nicholas and that Santa is a storybook character just like Little Red Riding Hood, but I'll also make them swear to not ruin it for other kids because I do think that's mean.
Damn that was long, so LW, yes, she's 13 yrs old, it's time to tell her Santa exists in storybooks and in movies and that it's people who are the real Santas, if she went to the North Pole she wouldn't find a village or a workshop filled with elves.
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Bring them in on the secret
A few others have mentioned something similar. In my family growing up I was about 8 or 9 when my Mom and Dad took me aside and let me in on the secret. The key to making it fun for me was letting me in on the fun. That night was wonderful. I was the one who got to eat the cookies and drink the milk. I was allowed to help stock the stockings, and wrap the santa presents. I was the one who was able to nibble on the carrots.
This helped me feel like part of the fun, and I loved carrying on the tradition for my younger siblings. I think that really helped.
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Okay, all you commenters
I have a son who just turned three. I'm not sure I can sustain the ridiculous fiction of Santa Claus -- the whole thing seemed fishy to me even at age five or so. (My younger sister, on the other hand, believed until she was nine.)
I put it to you: Am I the Worst Parent Ever if I abstain from this whole preposterous Santa thing? Would that make me heartless, neglectful, even?
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my grandmother's policy
My grandmother's policy was that if you were old enough to ask, you were old enough to be told the truth. This girl hasn't asked.
I feel a lot of empathy for this girl; although I figured out the Santa thing when I was quite young, I did believe in "imaginary friends" well into my teen years. On some level I did know that my imaginary world wasn't reality. But I would have bitten and kicked anyone who dared say so. My imagination was a part of ME and anyone who attacked it was attacking my identity.
On another note, I'm not sure that a stepmom spending her second Christmas with the girl needs to be the one to have the Santa discussion. Don't be the Stepmom who Killed Santa. She is her own person, with her own way of doing things; you have had only a short time to develop an understanding of her emotions and needs. Don't push it.
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Tell Her Santa Is Female
I, too, doubt whether a 13-year-old would believe Santa Claus was real. It brings to mind an old "Waltons" episode, where one of the daughters suddenly became "spiritual" – moping around the house, wearing even drabber clothing than was normal for this Depression-era TV family. Finally her mother called her on her fake humility - how she was actually drawing attention to herself, and reveling in that attention, that her new "spirituality” was bringing.
So a 13-year-old's belief in Santa Claus strikes me. However, perhaps I am a bit biased - I am now putting the finishing touches on a novel about a female Santa Claus, "Sonya Chloe Lives At the North Palace." I enjoyed it greatly when, at a temp job, a male automobile safety engineer responded with a puzzled look on his face - he said gently, as if not sure if he was the first to break the news to this grown woman/temp data entry clerk with an MFA: "but Santa Claus isn't real" - as if in order to write a novel about a FEMALE Santa Claus, one has to believe in the traditional (and male) Santa Claus. And then, the whole moral question of, if I talk about my novel in front of my young nieces and nephews, am I inadvertently communicating to them Santa Claus isn't real, or confusing them, foisting upon their young minds cognitive dissonance worthy of coal in my stocking? Layers of unreality!
It's interesting also, that as a 13-year-old, she is growing up in a "brand new world" - one with iPods, connectivity, globalization, and possibly - global warming. In my novel, a 14-year-old girl recites a poem she wrote in school: "Reggie the Red-Eyed Flying Vegetarian Polar Bear," a global-warming-aware holiday character and Rudolph update. An actual teenaged girl gave Reggie her name (my original choice of Rhonda just didn't flow), and my actual 15-year-old niece drew a picture of Reggie for me, complete with red eyes - you can read the poem & see Reggie at the sonyachloeDOTinfo website - how Reggie stacks up against Rudolph, much less Santa Claus, only time will tell.
There are things I love about the Santa myth, and things I don't. But in writing my novel (it is for adults) and struggling with my Sonya Chloe character, I've found something very rich, a way of talking about the titanic power struggles involved in empire building (and dissolution), the '67 Detroit riot, gender, architecture, marriage, wedding cake decorating, and...a lovely little "Decembuary" holiday - Charme de Neige ("Snowspell" in French) (I think). Will now 13-year-old Santa Claus diehards switch their allegiance to Sonya Chloe at 17? Only time will tell.