If/when you have kids, will you ask them to believe in Santa/ the Easter Bunny/ the Tooth Fairy/ etc?

Hahahaha, dishonesty is one of the top-3 parenting tools.

you tell me.

My sister was still in denial even in her teen years. Christmas morning, I'd say something like "It's cool that Mom got me this game" and she'd say "MOM? No, Santa got you that..."

i believed in santa, though. i think most people remember when they found out the truth. i remember sitting with my mom and her friend and saying 'santa claus isnt real, you know' and both of them laughing and my mom saying 'oh well, there goes half your presents!'

the one i really had trouble letting go of was magic. not the sugary disney/hallmark kind of magic but the bewitched/i dream of jeannie type magic. even now i catch myself willing something to float across the room to me, half believing that it actually will. im pretty lazy. magic would help out a lot.

i dont really care if my kids believe in any of these things. to me, its better than raising a cynic or a smartass who thinks theyre superior to everyone else because they know the truth. its really hard to recover from cynicism. id also worry about nasty calls from the parents of the children whose beliefs were kicked in the ass by my kid.

I'll post a thread that tells a tale (rather than type it all out once again)

How did your friends react when you told'em it was bullshit? (Serious question.)

My mum told me Sinterklaas (Sint Nicolas) was not real when I was about 11 yrs old. She was so afraid I'd be devestated, she had waited a few yrs longer before telling me.

"Uh, mum, I KNOW."

(That sentence sounds wrong - I don't mean that I think these lessons should immediately precede the 'No Santa' announcement) (and when I say 'I like it', I mean it amuses me)

-- Pleasant Plains ///

That is quite heart melting.

My sister also spoilt the whole Santa thing when I was like six years old. She said she had seen our mother wrapping up a present, and the next morning, it was the same wrapping paper and present, only from "Santa." I know, deprived childhood. I still kept putting out the carrot and cake though just to see if our parents would continue the game. They did. It got a bit silly really by the time I was 18.

I remember it all came unstuck for me when my dad was driving us around in the care and I saw three different Santas. It was an explosive realisation that shook me to the core of my physical being. I had to reject Santa or become a conceptual dualist of some description. On that very day, I chose science instead of religion.

carrot and cake? not even carrot cake?? santa scores a beer in every child occupied household (bad or good) each xmas eve in australia. thats why god loves australians the most.

the magic of christmas. duh!

I doubt many children had the kind of spontaneous, devastating reaction that moley mentions above - rather a subtler, smoother and mainly subconscious realisation which leads to a nod-and-a-wink pretence that gets you extra gifts until you're 18 :)

I didn't feel at all let down by this. I was chuffed that my mum thought I was responsible enough to know the facts. At the same time, remembering the sense of wonder and amazement I felt when I saw my presents on Christmas morning, I couldn't spoil it for anyone else. I hope my kids (when they appear) grow up believing too.

Never had none of this Easter bunny malarkey though. We were too religious for that.

I don't think my childhood suffered much from not having any of these ppl around. There were dinosaurs, and Donald Duck, and stuff.

I think parents who tell their children about Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, etc. lack a sense of imagination. I plan to tell my kids that their christmas presents come courtesy of a giant albino octopus called "Mungo Jerry" who lives in Switzerland and spends his spare time shitting hamsters.

http://www.epicharmus.com/donteverlookatme.jpg

Not only did we have Santa (the guy at the store is just a rep for Santacorp; see also Miracle on 34th Street), we had the Talking Christmas Tree, which had the personality of a cranky old man whose aching joints were seizing up from the winter cold: 'hey you kids! Get over here and rub my branches, I'm FREEZING! Aaaarghhhh...MUCH better!' This was really my uncle in the other room via ancient office intercom nestled under the velvet whatchee at the base of the tree. Our from-parents presents were under the tree for a few weeks and the 'stocking' presents were all Santa, including those mongo oranges and apples the size of a toddler's head. I figured out that both were ruses at about six, but played along to keep it special for my sister, who at THREE had discovered the concept of minesweeping unattended beers.

One Christmas Eve at my aunt's house there was an almighty scrabbling in the chimney in the late evening, followed by an angry thud. Santa in this case was *awfully* raccoon-shaped.

serious answer, I don't remember telling anyone--maybe this was because I was really shy and didn't talk to a lot of other kids (I was in a new school every year too). It wasn't that the concept of Santa or whatever wasn't ever introduced to me, it's that it was introduced as myth rather than fact. My grandfather was the village santa, so when we spent the holidays with him, I helped make up bags of fruit and candy for all the other kids, saw the suit, etc. I understood 'Santa' as a symbol of the spirit of the holiday--sharing and togetherness. Even as a greedy little kid, christmas was more about cooking good food and hanging out with my family. I was raised in an areligious household, though, so maybe that has something to do with it.

This is what my parents did, and is what I'm doing, too.

my comment ("what a load of old tripe"), way up thread, was not about the thread question, it was just a rude reaction to some of what dee said

my parents never really played up the santa thing or tooth fairy thing but I knew about them and what to expect and, quite early, I suppose, we all knew that it wasn't something that needed to be pretended about--I always knew where my presents or toothmoney were coming from but it was fun to have them appear, in a slightly magical way. I imagine it is a bit of fun, for parents, too--sneakin' around, trying not to wake up the kids, and putting presents in place and stuff and seeing their kids' surprise

easter was never a big thing, for us, at all, other than just a holiday and egg stuff. I don't think the easter bunny is v. popular in the UK

This should also be posted in the comic sans hataz thread.

hahahah. this is great. I'm SO doing this with my kids.

my parents LOVED this kinda tradition. they did the easter bunny, santa, & the tooth fairy for all of us, tho i figured out the tooth fairy bit just by being a smart-ass one day.

we left cookies for santa, and a carrot & a basket of painted hardboiled eggs for the easter bunny to hide. easter sunday morning would have us run around to find the eggs(which were eaten for breakfast) and our easter baskets(which always had stuff like Pez & Bloom County/Calvin & Hobbes books). and all this before going to church that day.

my folks _still_ send me easter baskets in the mail(in the form of a shipping box w/ pastic grass, candy & whatnot).

we'd get quarters for our babyteeth. when they were really loose, we'd go to my dad who found it rather entertaining to help pull them out with a gripping wrench.

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/263600/2/Wrench.jpg

I am SO carrying on this tradition. until i have kids, i'll dress up as Santa and stomp around drunk with 200 other Santas. gotta celebrate the holidays anyway you can.

hell yeah. it was a smaller model, tho, with yellow handles.

i think we would wash it off in the sink first. can't remember.

When pregnant with my first child, I swore I would never 1) lie to my kids; 2) hit them or threaten them; 3) limit their exploration or questioning. I kept to #2, never lied to them about big things (i.e. sex, religion), and limited exploration to keep them safe (possibly safer than they wanted to be kept).

Lies I told my children were those they would catch me out in, but that they could buy into as part of the family mythos: The car will not start if all persons' seatbelts aren't fastened. The car will not run if there is screaming or hitting inside it. Marshmallows are pieces of cloud that fall into the backyard, which must be picked especially early in the morning. If you don't ever put your tongue in the space left from a baby tooth, a gold one will come in. Things like that.

A little of this sort of thing is rather harmless in a peek-a-boo kind of way, but the whole 'Santa' deceit is far too elaborate and sustained; it goes well past the point of harmlessness. A lot of kids's first real disappointment in their parents occurs when they discover they've been hoaxed for years over the existence of these magical beings.

oh, you're no fun anymore

Oh for fuck's sake.

As long as your kids believe in this guy, they'll be fine.

Ha ha, you never got anything but coal in your stocking did you?

A little of this sort of thing is rather harmless in a peek-a-boo kind of way, but the whole 'Santa' deceit is far too elaborate and sustained; it goes well past the point of harmlessness.

Um "a little of this sort of thing" is exactly what Santa is. If you want to see a deceit that's far too elaborate and sustained you should check out this guy called Jesus.

The question then becomes which kinds of fun do you value most, not do you value fun at all.

For as long as I can remember I always thought the Easter Bunny was pretty stupid and obviously contrived. It never took me in and my parents weren't too interested in pushing that belief on me. The tooth fairy never meant any more to me than a quarter under my pillow. It wasn't some demi-god who made life magical.

The Santa stuff can be several orders of magnitude past those other two - especially in some households where the parents really sell the idea to their kids and put a massive amount of work into 'proving' Santa's reality, by setting up a lot of phony evidence. The further it goes, the worse it becomes, in my view. The parents who hard-sell the idea are just setting up themselves and their kids for an unpleasant jolt somewhere down the line.

These are the same parents who put a lot of tacit pressure on other parents to play along and not "ruin" it, even when their children are reaching an age where they would normally outgrow this fantasy.

I don't see Santa as invariably bad. So long as Santa is indulged in lightly, sketchily, off-handedly, as a fun story like any other fun story. I've just seen too many parents go off the deep end with this stuff. Then it gets bad.

what, did your world come crashing in on you when you found out it wasn't true? because mine didn't.

santa claus is fun. the easter bunny is just creepy though.

http://www.firstanimationart.com/images/ZTVCAT/226_PEA_Welcome_Great_Pumpkin.jpg

I haven't read a single post of yours on this thread! Also I am older than you, so the stuff I did came first.

And you're not jewish!

-- Beth Parker

Strewelpeter! I had that book as a kid. When I was in Austria. That book has to be seen to be believed - oh, the pictures! The stories! No wonder my I turned out so twisted.

That little kid in the picture Beth posted is crying because he's having his thumbs cut off.

In order to deserve the later, inevitable opprobrium they will cast upon me, if ever I have children I will tell them Xmas presents come Satan. If they end up dyslexic, I'll just tell them they misunderstood me.

-- teeny (teen...), October 4th, 2005.

Could you explain it to me? How did you parents explain it to you? "People do stupid shit for fun?"

Good idea! I read something last year about people actually doing this in San Francisco.

(i would like the solstice feast idea, too.)

If a kid has the ability to look through the walls of a house two continents away, then I don't think that he's going to be too impressed with an Elmo doll.

Correction #1: I don't carry around the Tooth Fairy pillow. I put it in this handy thing called a drawer. It's in this big piece of furniture called a chest of drawers. The Tooth Fairy pillow is where the "bag of teeth" is.

Correction #2: These are BABY teeth. VERY small teeth. They were WASHED CLEAN when each one of them fell out (of their own volition). They are also small enough to where the bag is a small jewelry bag, one where one might be able to store a pair of earrings or a necklace.

See? Now it's nothing remotely like toting "the trophy bag of a Vietnam vet" around. Geez, Williams, one would think you wouldn't know what "creepy" meant.

Well, tonight I thank God it's him instead of you.

(xpost)

Oh dear, Pleasant Plains. I'm going to have that song stuck in my head for a long time now. "Do they know it's Christmas after all?"

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~kangaroo/zwartepiet.jpg

http://nerds.unl.edu/pages/preser/sec/2006cohort/activities/MrHanky.jpg

Yes! Here they really do the whole *shebang*. The have a Sinterklaas coming in with a proper boat!

I once came home saying:"Mummy, we had Sinterklaas in school but he wasn't the real one. His beard was fake."

Some weird zoroastrian, pagan, wiccan, voodoo, yoga paranormal activity is real, but probably a lot more scary and less cheerful compared to those sitcoms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_%28paranormal%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_and_religion

Last night, our two were making Hamma Bead pictures, and Amber (7) said she was going to ask Santa for some Large size ones, to which Alice (5) replies "Oh, Santa doesn't exist. It's just something Parents invented fo Christmas presents"...

Anyway, upon asking who said all this to her, turns out it's the mother of one of her friends at school.

Anyway, Amber refused to believe her, and Dawn said something along the lines of "If you believe in magic, magic things happen."

I know, pro's and cons, but it's a bit early to be pondering all this, at five.

Seriously, this seems to be true. My gf's little sister kicks ass at any game involving dice or cards because she believes she's going to win. It seems all kids believe like this and when we're young we accomplish things that we later look back on as old cowards set in our ways and marvel at how we succeeded at those things we believed we could do. And thankfully we don't have to do some of these things over again because, in retrospect, we can't believe we did these things anymore and certainly couldn't do them again. I wish I could muster up enough belief to get a new job.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v210/jel2004/servotron.jpg

It has "Death of the Sugarplum Fairy" on the b-side.