Santa

There are a few well-known serious talks that parents have to have with their children. One that I've been wondering about lately is the "Santa isn't real" talk.

My siblings and I dodged that one simply because my parents never taught us that he existed, so we were enlightened from an early age. For those whose parental lying necessitates this kind of talk, I wonder if there needs to be a guidebook that handles the best way to approach the subject and how to deal with common questions or concerns. Here are a few excerpts from what I think those talks must usually be like:

Kid: Why didn't you tell me that it was you buying those gifts?
Parent: Because we believe that gratitude should be reserved for enigmatic fat men and not actually given to those who deserve it.


Parent: We told you about Santa to make you more excited for Christmas.
Kid: Yeah, but that just raised false hopes. Had I known that my Christmas presents would have been capped by your budget, I wouldn't have expected so much, and thus, wouldn't have been nearly as disappointed.
Parent: We're preparing you for the future. You'll constantly go through cycles of convincing yourself that life doesn't suck only to be proven wrong.
Kid: So you only told me about Santa to make the disappointment that much sharper when I didn't get what I wanted?
Parent: You'll thank us for it when you're older.


Kid: So it turns out that I would have gotten all of those gifts regardless of if I was bad. That means I no longer have any motivation to do good, right?
Parent: Well we might not get you gifts if you behave too badly.
Kid: Should I use your past regard for the truth as my means to analyze that statement?


Kid: Now exactly why did you lie to me about Santa?
Parent: Well, we believed that it was important for you to be excited about Jesus' birth, but we decided that Jesus was too boring, so we fed you some BS about a magical philanthropist so that you would be excited about the holiday.
Kid: So Santa was just a mask for the much less exciting Jesus.
Parent: That is right.
Kid: Can you just skip to the end and tell me about the really boring person that Jesus is masking?


Kid: Once you decided to lie to make me excited about something, why did you choose Santa? Telling me that Star Wars or Lord of the Rings was real would have been much cooler and not been so easy to disprove.
Parent: Santa is a major part of our culture.
Kid: Wait a minute. Your behavior has nothing to do with what is intelligent, makes sense, or will improve your life or relationships? It's just blindly following your culture?
Parent: Well, I guess when you put it that way...
Narrator: And with a sudden depressing insight, the child now understands the cause of so many of the world's problems.