Yes, Bailey, There is a Santa Claus

In her most recent post, MinivanMom spoke of her dilemma regarding whether or not to tell Bailey the "truth" about Santa. Of course, we've had this discussion before, and I considered posting my opinion as a comment. I thought, though, that this might be an opportunity for me to jump back into the blogosphere. This particular debate is one that I struggle with as well, because I want to be honest with my children (to a degree), but I hate to burst the bubble of magic that surrounds the Christmas holiday.

Should we allow our children to discover the truth on their own, or should we lead them to truth before they find out from less reliable sources? Dr. Jacqueline Woolley, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, believes that the Santa myth discourages healthy skepticism in children:

The adults they count on to provide reliable information about the world introduce them to Santa. Then his existence is affirmed by friends, books, TV and movies. It is also validated by hard evidence: the half-eaten cookies and empty milk glasses by the tree on Christmas morning. In other words, children do a great job of scientifically evaluating Santa. And adults do a great job of duping them

The evidence, though, supports the idea that children are not scarred by the misinformation. In fact, in one study Dr. John Condry of Cornell University interviewed more than 500 children and found that not a single child was angry at his or her parents for telling them Santa Claus was real. According to Dr. Condry, "The most common response to finding out the truth was that they felt older and more mature. They now knew something that the younger kids didn't."

So what do we do? I think it has to be a matter of personal preference and, in our case, a manner that continues to sustain the environment of trust and honesty we've fostered in our house. When Bailey asked where babies came from, we didn't balk. There was never any talk of storks in our house. So, wouldn't our choice to be complicit with this societal myth contradict the ideals we claim to espouse.

Not really…because, you see, I believe in Santa Claus. Oh, maybe not the jolly old elf in the red suit made famous by Thomas Nast. Perhaps he doesn't live at the North Pole, or come down the chimney with a bag of gifts, but he is very real. Bailey is completely right when he says, "we asked Santa for a Wii and a DS for my sister this year, and that's like over 400 dollars and there is NO WAY my Mom and Dad have 400 dollars to buy us that stuff. So Santa must be real." The kid has a Playstation2, Playstation3, and a Nintendo DS. There is no way I would buy him a Wii. But Santa would.

Perhaps the best explanation of my belief in Santa comes from Francis Pharcellus Church in 1897. 8-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote The Sun and asked, "Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?" Church responded in an unsigned editorial:

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

The whole editorial is wonderfully written, and I make sure to read it every Christmas. Soon, I think, we'll be reading it to Bailey. It is important to realize in life that just because something can't be seen or heard or felt, doesn't mean it's not there. In fact, some of the most real things in the world are those for which no empirical evidence exists.

Yes, Bailey, there is a Santa Claus. He lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Bailey, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.