Santa is pretend.
He is not real but yet we go to great lengths to convince our children that he is.
Why?I recognize that change is a very frightening thing to lots of people.
It has been our tradition for decades to convince our children that Santa is real.
Why? The argument is that it is fun for kids to believe in the fantasy of Santa Claus.
However, what adults are forgetting is that it is not a fantasy to them.
It is only a fantasy to adults.
Insisting to children that Santa is real completely takes advantage of their naivety.
I can still remember finding out Santa was pretend.
I remember thinking, "how could my parents have lied to me my entire childhood?This is it? There is no wonderful magical man riding around on Christmas Eve?"It was a huge let down.
It was the day I lost my innocence.
It was the day I realized if I cannot trust my own parents, then who can I trust? The argument also is that life is too short to be dwelling on Santa.
I agree that life is short.
That is why we need to start looking past our lifetimes to the lifetimes of our future generations.
If you could exchange your childhood of believing in Santa for a lifetime of being able to trust what people tell you, wouldn't you do that? Santa is a wonderful fable and he stands for wonderful things like generosity, goodwill, perseverance and hard work.
I want the story to live on.
It is a wonderful story but as it stands now the story has been completely taken advantage of.
It has become a huge conspiracy.
The Santa we know today originated as a Coca-Cola ad campaign.
It has gotten completely out of control.
My daughter argues with me and tries to convince me that Santa is real.
She thinks her mother is the delusional one since everybody else is telling her he is real.
I want my daughter to have at least one person in this world she can trust.
Our lies are reinforcing to our children that it is okay to lie.
My daughter's young cousin told her that she knows he is real because she saw him putting presents under the tree Christmas Eve.
This is a blatant lie.
I'm all for presents and telling wonderful Santa stories at Christmastime.
But we need to draw the line.
A story is a story and reality is reality.
Rather than believing so much in Santa, why don't we start believing in ourselves?Why don't we start taking on the attributes that we love so dearly in Santa? Goodwill, generosity, perseverance and hard work.
Stop believing in Santa and start believing in yourself.
Honesty is the first step to ever achieving peace.
Honesty needs to begin with individuals making that choice.