Not sure what to tell my 4 year old about Santa

by jwfacts 41 Replies latest jw friends

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  jwfacts

  My adorable little son is very excited about Christmas. I have not made a big thing about it, but he must have picked up the Christmas spirit from what he is seeing in the shops and on tv. He loves the music, and movies and all the decorations. He got so excited putting up a Christmas tree, and loves the baubels, tinsel and flashing lights. What I found unusal is that he was saying he had to finish putting all the baubels on the tree so Santa will bring the presents.

  I don't know if I should burst his bubble and tell him that Santa is not real and is not coming with presents. I mentioned that Santa is just a story, but I am not sure that he really differentiates yet between what are stories and what is reality. He still seems fixated with Santa Clause, and since we don't have a chimney he is expecting him to come through the front door. He even made a joke about Santa coming with his goats, and then laughed and said it is really reindeer.

  I personally feel uncomfortable lying to him about Santa, but don't want him to miss out on all the wonderment of childhood. I think mythology is an important part of the human psyche, so am content with going along with the Christmas story. Any ideas on how to present Santa so that he can be thrilled by the story, with any lasting damage about being misled.
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  sweet pea

  Paul, let him believe what he wants - one day he'll come to realisation what the truth is and he'll be fine about it, no huge damage done. We're not talking religious indoctrination, we're talking harmless myths that make childhood magical. Ham it up even by leaving snowy footprints from the reindeer (flour/oats etc) and remember the brandy, cookies and carrots must be left out for Santa and his reindeer! He'll have those specal memories forever; no doubt one day he'll even tell his children all the silly things his parents did to help him believe Santa was real.

  Even my JW parents perpetuated the tooth fairy myth - my father left me special notes with each 10p telling me what the fairies would be using my teeth for - I smile every time I remember back and bear no hard feelings toward my parents for stringing me along.

  Childhood is so short, embrace the myths!
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  mrsjones5

  Well you could present the story of Santa as a fairytale or a cartoon, something that is pleasant and fun to watch but is known not to be real. Like all the holiday cartoons that are on right now.

  P.S. my children all (expect my daughter, she a bit of a realist) believed in Santa. I've asked my children if they resented me or think I harmed them for letting them believe that Santa was real. I got smiles of remembrances and noes.
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  InterestedOne

  I think my mom did a good job with it in my upbringing. She just had fun with it, and it eventually wore off as I matured. There was no traumatic moment of realizing there's no santa claus. Here are some things she did that I think helped keep it in perspective. She would read to me out of a big picture book that had the famous poem about santa claus. This helped my language development and imagination. To me, it was kind of like reading out of a Mother Goose book. It was fun, and somewhere in my young mind, I knew it was imaginary. With presents, some of the tags said "from Mommy," others said "from Santa" and she played with it even more by having some tags say "from Jack Frost." This was helpful because it let me know that parents give presents too, not just Santa. Being an observant child, I noticed that the handwriting was all my Mom's.
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  sammielee24

  I think the idea of 'lasting damage' is nonsense when it comes to Santa and the Easter Bunny. If you have the tree, you watch the movies, you whistle or hum to the tunes, it becomes Christmas with Santa. He's four years old. Kids find out on their own - I would say 99.99999% of us haven't had any lasting damage to us when we realized he wasn't real. I once told my baby sister that little furry kittens came from pussy willows - she's not on any meds 40 years later.

  Santa comes in through the front door when you have no chimney. Leave a glass of milk, a couple of carrots and a few cookies on the counter for Santa and his reindeer. You can do sky tracking now on Christmas Eve to follow the sleigh....this is a magical time for kids and for a lot of people, Christmas as a kid is the one memory they think back on. I still think back on the traditions, the people, the tree, the decorations my mother loved to hang, the Christmas breakfast - I couldn't tell you when I knew Santa wasn't real - I can tell you about waking up to my Christmas stocking on the end of my bed, of salmon pie for breakfast, cold eggnog in our glass, hanging paper bells on the ceiling, Christmas cards wrapped around the doorway, cousins and aunts and uncles stopping by all day....don't dwell on the Christmas presents....or the Santa...make it a time for good memories and warm traditions that he will carry with him the rest of his life in a positive way.

  You can always begin to help him transition if you are that concerned by telling him that Santa only brings one gift because he has so many children to help and that mom and dad bring the others...and make sure they are identified under the tree in the morning. sammies
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  lilbluekitty

  If I had a child I'd do it one of two ways. I'd allow the child to think what he wants and discover later that Santa isn't real, or I would just tell him that Santa is kind of like Disney characters, he's only on TV but not say it in a mean way, just explain it's a story like Cinderella or something. When I was a kid I thought that stuff was real, (not Santa though) and when I got older and found out it was make-believe, I wasn't upset.

  Basically as long as you don't tell him Santa is BAD it's probably fine, that messed me up thinking he was basically the same as the devil, that's what my parents told me. In reality he's just a story, that's all.
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  AnnOMaly

  I don't have experience with the Santa thing (for obvious reasons), but we did a Tooth Fairy thing for a while (yeah, I know, I know). But we talked about the TF with a twinkle in our eyes and a slight smile on our faces (a "we're kinda pulling your leg and we're waiting for you to catch on" look?). I hate the idea of lying to kids like that and risking their hurt and disappointment when they learn the truth (we know how that feels, right?), so this was a way of getting around it.

  The eldest caught on pretty quickly and then was in on the 'joke' with us. It took a couple of years before the youngest smelled a rat and started accusing me of being the Tooth Fairy ... which I denied with the same "I'm pulling your leg" look ... until eventually she got quite cross that I wasn't giving her a straight answer and I said something like "the game's up" or whatever. She looked quite pleased with herself that her suspicions were correct and she'd busted me.

  Curiously after that, the Tooth Fairy's receipts for 'goods received' and money never appeared mysteriously under their pillows after her real identity was revealed. Still, it was fun while it lasted.
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  jwfacts

  Thanks for the comments.

  Christmas seems to be a very special time for him, as he has very clear memories of Christmas from last year, when he was not even quite 3. So many of my friends say their best childhood memories were of Christmas. I think deep down he comprehends it is a story, in much the same way he knows the bedtime stories I tell him about dragons are not real.

  Sam, I love the idea of the snowy footprints. A friend was saying when she was little they would leave a bucket of water and carrots for the reindeer, and in the morning there would be half eaten carrots and hay floating on top of the bucket. Unfortunately in Australia we don't have any real snow at Christmas.

  Here is a picture Zac. With that hair he won't be mistaken for a JW boy.

  
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  NewChapter

  I was not raised a JW, so I believed in Santa. My world did not end when I found out the truth. It never occurred to me that my parent's lied to me, it didn't destroy my trust in them, it didn't damage me. Instead, I felt that finding out the truth was a rite of passage--something that made me an adult. I had been trusted with a secret, and now it was my duty to make Santa real to the little ones and to keep that secret until they too came to the crossroads.

  WT wants us to believe all kinds of weird stuff. I'm here to say that Santa was fun for a while, but being "big" enough to debunk him was really fun too. Look, my dad had me convinced he could swallow a ball. My world didn't end when I figured out that was just a trick either.

  NC
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  jwfacts

  lilbluekitty - Basically as long as you don't tell him Santa is BAD it's probably fine, that messed me up thinking he was basically the same as the devil, that's what my parents told me.

  Good point. I think those of us that completely missed out on Christmas and had to make a stand at school against it are more messed. Particularly having it drummed into us that it was pagan and all the little children celebrating it would soon be dying at Armageddon.