It’s January 29, and I Just Told My Kids the Truth About Santa
Why Honesty and Trust Mattered More to Me Than Make-believe
Well, I just told my kids Santa isn’t real.
The Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, and Wishing Fountains were also caught in the crossfire.
My son said, “YOU’RE TAKING EVERYTHING AWAY?!!!!”
Then he laughed. We laughed. It’s fine. He’s fine. We’re all fine.
Genuinely, it felt like this invisible weight lifted, and the rest of our night went really well.
These past couple of weeks have been a big upheaval in the charismatic church world. A series of exposés have come out regarding some leaders in that space, specifically around clergy abuse, spiritual manipulation, and cover-up culture. It’s been over a decade since I was part of those circles, but it was still a lot of information to receive and process. I won’t get into all of that here, only to say, it made me think… how do I fix this so it doesn’t leak onto my kids?
Fix what?
Well… building their foundation on a house of cards.
I realized that when my kids look back on their lives, they will see me as their first source of truth. I’m their mom, and I’m their teacher: both in the parenting sense and in the I pick all their curriculum sense. If I’m their primary source of truth, I can’t afford to be untrustworthy.
And listen, this is me, not you. This is something I’m navigating, not prescribing.
Santa was never really a thing in our house until this past year. The kids never directly asked, and we never brought it up. But this year, being part of a regular community with kids from all different backgrounds, Santa entered the conversation. And part of me loved it. Their hearts were young enough to live in a make-believe fantasy, and after adulting for so long, I loved it. Same thing with the Tooth Fairy. That’s the only one we really engaged with, mostly to make the fearsome task of tooth extraction a little more bearable. They loved the anticipation of writing a letter and waking up to a dollar under their pillow.
When the Mike Winger podcast dropped last week and I received new information about the church/school I was formerly affiliated with, I found myself feeling like the rug was pulled out from under me. Things I believed in good faith turned out to be false because a group of leaders decided it was better to withhold the truth. They believed transparency would derail “the movement.”
Honestly, it made me mad.
It felt like I wasn’t allowed a mind of my own, to think or process honestly. And out of the myriad of things I need to think about, the first next step for me stemmed from the thought, I don’t want to do that to my kids.
I don’t want to hem and haw when they ask me if Santa is real.
“Well, um, honey, I don’t know… what do you think?”
Or, “Hmm, maybe next Christmas we can set a trap.”
It started to feel dishonest. All I could think about was: What happens when they find out? Will they wonder if I lied about other things too? Am I helping them understand the difference between make-believe and faith? Will they trust me with the big questions, or, like what happened to me, assume I’ll lie to them “for their own good”?
So we made chocolate chip cookies, cuddled up under a blanket, and I began:
Kids, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. I recently found out that when I was in school, someone told me something was good when it was actually bad. They lied, and when I found out, it made me really sad. It also made me realize that I don’t want to lie to you. I want you to know that I’m going to do my best to answer you honestly, so you know you can come to me with anything and trust me.
There are a couple of questions you’ve been asking me recently… Santa.
So, a long, long time ago, there was a good man named Nicholas. He wanted to do something special for kids who were having a hard time at Christmas, so he bought them warm clothes. Kids got excited and started telling stories about St. Nick. After he died, people wanted to continue that tradition, and over time, as the story was told and retold, it became the story of Santa Claus.
He was a real person, not magic. Mom and Dad put the gifts under the tree. Magic doesn’t exist the way you think it does. But God did something even better: He gave you a mom and dad who will always do their best to make things special and beautiful for you. That’s even better than magic. That’s love.
We celebrate Christmas and Easter to remember God’s love. And that love is what helps Mom and Dad create special memories for you.
They asked a lot of questions. We talked about the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the wishing well at the library, and throwing coins into fountains. We talked about the difference between a wish and a prayer. We talked about how these things are fun and memorable, but they don’t have special power. My daughter was disappointed about the fountain wishes, and we talked about how God answers prayer. Sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes wait, because it’s His will, and He always does what’s right in His time. We gave them examples of that from our own lives, and how easy it would have been to give up when it looked like God was saying no, but how happy we are that we waited.
My kids weren’t upset. They were surprised, especially about the Tooth Fairy. There were a lot of, “What?! Come On!” and “Now I know why the tooth fairy didn’t come on my 5th tooth, because you were too tired!” We laughed at different memories, dad getting caught on tooth fairy duties, mom, flashlight in hand fishing a tooth out from under the bed at 1 in the morning.
But overall, it was good. We assured them that this didn’t mean special or fun things were over. If anything, it’s better now because everyone gets to be in on the fun. It was honest.
Even though I’m sure there will be lots of followup needed and all this came at the tail end of a spiritually taxing week, it felt right.
Sharing all this to say: our kids are people too. Little versions of us. And maybe we can trust them with a little measured truth.
Hopefully, one day, they’ll remember they can trust us too.
If this feels like a place you’d like to return to, you’re warmly invited to join the community.