Santa Shock!

Do You Tell Your Kids the Truth About Santa Claus?

My First Published Children’s Book

Christmas is coming, and I’m wondering what to tell my eighteen-month old daughter about Santa Claus.

As a child, I was deeply invested in Santa. On Christmas Eve, I put out apples and carrots for the reindeer. My older brother, Philip, helped. There was nothing more exciting or gratifying than finding the empty plate on Christmas morning. I’d helped Santa’s reindeer on their way.

In the weeks before Christmas, I wrote long letters to Santa addressed to the North Pole. My friend Karen was with me once when mailed one.

“What are you doing?” she asked. Actually, what she said was, “What do you think you’re doing?”

I explained that I was writing to Santa.
“There’s is no such thing as Santa Claus,” said Karen. (Karen was a year older than I, and a year wiser. Besides that, her family celebrated Hanukkah. She had absolutely no stake in Santa.)

I knew what she said was a lie, an ugly rumor. But the sheer heresy of it upset me. Christmas drew nearer.

At school, a philosophical debate raged among my classmates, “Does Santa Claus exist?” The entire first grade was divided over the issue. I allied myself with the “Yes” camp, but the question itself was disturbing. Why should a fundamental truth such as the…