Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus...
wrote the New York Sun back in 1897.
But wait, some would say. Why would they lie to children like that, and why do we lie to children by perpetuating Santa Claus?
This was a conversation I had with a co-worker a few weeks ago, and it brought me back to an article I wrote a few years ago for the now-defunct Yahoo Contributor Network saying what I felt the need to write about again: calling Santa a "lie" totally misses the point that the New York Sun understood.
Telling children about Santa and letting them believe in Santa isn't lying to them, it's teaching them a myth/story/legend that has resonating truths that go far beyond childhood.
Santa, of course, is based on the 3rd century Greek St. Nicholas. But just because the jolly fat man living at the North Pole isn't real doesn't mean there is harm in children believing in his existence. After all, children naturally believe in a lot of things that aren't real: monsters under the bed, fairies, the Easter bunny, the list goes on. Believing in the reality of these myths is just what children do, and it is adults who try to impose their rational minds on children's instead of appreciating the gifts of their youthful spirits.
These are all beliefs that children grow out of in time, but there is no harm in allowing them. And I have never met anyone who has been emotionally scarred by finding out Santa wasn't real, nor anyone who distrusted adults because of the "lie." They simply shed their belief in time, some sooner and some later, as their understanding of reality vs. fantasy blossomed. And that can happen without shunning the fantasy.
After all, there is meaning and wonder behind the fantasy. Not only depression but also cynicism can create in adults a strict rationality that forgets that there is always meaning behind myth. So let the children believe, and stop referring to Santa Claus as a "lie."
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