Sorry, Virginia, Your Parents Are Dirty Liars.

Seeing as it's Christmas Eve (Merry Christmas, for those of you who celebrate!) I thought I'd address a common  rebuttal and point of skepticism when I talk about living a life free of lying:

You have to lie to your kids about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and various and sundry other things.

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... No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
- Francis Marcellus Church,

The vast majority of the world's children don't celebrate Christmas, but to those who do, I understand that sustaining the myth that Santa Claus brings toys on Christmas Eve is a cherished holiday tradition. Little children believe in Santa Claus with a fervency and innocent simplicity that is unparalleled by anything in adulthood, and we, as adults, tend to romanticize the belief in Santa as a real being as a result.

The thing is, millions of children have joyous, cherished Christmas memories and tradition that don't involve their parents staging elaborate lies and manipulating them into believing something that isn't true.

In Spain, where my family is from - and there are over a dozen kids between all us cousins on my father's side - they don't really emphasize Santa Claus. They have other traditions, like a little Yule log that brings presents, but even the smallest children know it's not the log - it's just a fun pretend game with a cute Christmas story attached to it. In Cuba and other Spanish-speaking countries, it's on the Epiphany, January 6 that "Los Reyes Magos," the Three Wise Kings from the Nativity story of the Bible, bring presents under the tree or in the living room or whatever. However, again, most children are aware that it's just a fun pretend holiday story. Everyone plays along, but no one is deliberately deceived. The holiday is not made any less special or fun for those kids.

I'm not suggesting that Americans need to adopt the traditions of other countries because that's arrogant. People have the right to form and cherish their own unique traditions. But what I am suggesting is a different approach to Santa Claus using other cultures as a model, in order to establish a relationship of honesty and trust between parents and children. That's a tradition that is worthwhile, too.

There is no need to do away with Santa Claus for Christmas, even if you're committed to living a life free of lying. You can still read stories to your kids like Twas the Night Before Christmas. Much like you read them fairytales and tell them about Greek myths and other cherished children's stories, you can tell them about Santa in the same context. You can play pretend that Santa's reindeer can be heard on the rooftops, you can leave out milk and cookies, you can sing "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town."  Your child can make a Christmas wish list and mail it off to the North Pole - as long as you make it clear that it's just for fun.

Even very small children - even most toddlers - have the capacity to understand fact from fiction. Children know that fairies, monsters and aliens aren't real, but they still have the capacity to imagine they are and have fun with that imaginative process. The process of imagining Santa as the patron saint of Christmas (and he really is!) is still fun for kids without being tricked into thinking he's a real person.

Why wouldn't you want to trick your kids if it's "so much fun"? Lots of reasons. The idea that there is a Santa Claus watching you like a hawk and waiting for you to screw up so that he can snatch away all the toys you otherwise would've gotten is outright manipulative of children. It's emotional blackmail. Parents think it's funny, but to a child who believes it's real, it's dead serious and can produce anxiety, especially in children who are eager to please. I can't help think there must be a better way to preserve the tradition of Santa Claus without manipulating and lying to children.

Yesterday I was in Target doing some Christmas shopping, and saw a father browsing the toy aisle with two children between the ages of 5 and 8 running wild in the toy aisle. Of course, they were - they're children in a toy aisle the night before Christmas Eve. The younger one was getting kind of whiny about wanting this toy or that for Christmas, and the dad snapped, "If you don't quit whining, Santa is going to hear and bring you nothing." Immediately the child fell silent and wide-eyed with fear. And I thought: "Dude, if you need to blackmail your kids into not whining while you're in Target, maybe you need to rethink how you communicate with them instead of trying to scare them into submission." Or maybe you shouldn't bring a 5-year-old to the toy aisle the night before Christmas at 8 o'clock at night and not expect them to whine.

Many kids express feelings of various degrees of betrayal and disappointment when they find out that Santa isn't real - betrayal from and disappointment in their parents. We look back and idealize the moments when we were naive enough to believe in everything our parents told us, and after we found out the truth about Santa Claus, many of us simultaneously realized that our parents have the capacity to lie to us. I don't think that's romantic or sweet at all. I think that is laying the groundwork for a relationship that isn't based on rock-solid trust. Children catch on very quickly: if you're willing to lie to them about this, you're willing to lie about something else - and they have a license to do the same.

I'd rather have a relationship with kids that is based on the knowledge that I don't lie to them. That they can trust what I say unequivocally. That I don't think it's cute or fun to fool them for my own convenience, nostalgia and entertainment.  I'm all for Santa Claus, but as a Christmas fairytale and fun story, not as a stark reality that determines if a child gets a gift or not.

There's an added bonus to not lying about Santa Claus and re-aligning your approach to Christmas with your kids. Every year, I hear families express over and over that they wish the holiday didn't emphasize greed and cheap materialism. They wish that the holiday season could focus more on generosity, selflessness, charity and  family togetherness. They wish their kids weren't so obsessed with getting a glut of shiny toys the way all the commercials encourage. Christians wish they could find more ways to focus on the spiritual aspects of the season; secular people and people of other faiths may feel left out by its ubiquitousness.

Rethinking Santa Claus is an ideal way to reconcile these problems. The reality is that Saint Nicholas, on whom the myth of Santa Claus is loosely based, was a real fourth-century Greek bishop who did embody the spirit of generosity, charity and selflessness. Reading stories about this historical saint is a rich way for Christians to teach their kids about the true values of the season. There are a ton of really good children's books, some with beautiful illustrations, about the historical figure of Saint Nicholas and what his life was like and why he came to be revered by Christians all over the world the way he is today. That'll add some cool layers to leaving out milk and cookies!

Secular people and people of other faiths can explore our modern-day understanding of Santa Claus with their kids and talk about stories from other traditions. Santa Claus isn't entirely drawn from the fourth-century Greek saint. It's also based on European winter solstice traditions and world myths with heavy helpings of American marketing strategies.  Other countries have other traditions about gift-giving on Christmas - leaving shoes out to fill, giving gifts in secret, etc. Talking about that with kids can be a really fun way to talk about all the creative ways we can be generous and charitable, as well as expose your kids to multiple points of view about the season. Now you have access to a wealth of fairy tales and holiday stories to share with your kids instead of just one. Now you're able to look up the holiday traditions of your own family's cultures and play those up if you want, instead of Coca-Cola's.

I think people tend to overstate and over think this issue. You don't have to lie to your kids about Santa Claus to have fun at Christmas. You don't even have to get rid of Santa to not lie about it. It's really not that hard!