Is Santa real?And how should parents approach the santa issue with young children?

Is Santa real? Heck no, are you kidding me?? It is a ridiculous and destructive myth that we created to manipulate the behavior of our children and which fails to account for why all the bratty annoying kids of wealthy people are apparently so deeply loved by St. Nick, meanwhile the adorable but barely-making-it poor kid gets a couple pieces of candy and one hot wheels car.

Yikes! I feel like I came out way too hot there. Let’s back up and try again. But less crazy this time.

How should parents approach the Santa issue? This is a tough one for parents. On the one hand, you can lie to your kid . . . and watch them have years of unbridled joy opening presents and witlessly thanking the wrong person for it, while you sip on hot chocolate at dawn and reflect on the beauty and innocence of childhood and this astoundingly perfect creature your DNA somehow produced. But you did lie. On the other hand, you can suck the joy out of childhood with your sanctimonious holier-than-thou holiday fascism that insists that Santa is emphatically NOT the reason for the season, while simultaneously destining your child for a lifetime of vapid no-fun-allowed-ism and a decade of Emo clothes, vampiric sleeping patterns, Goth music, and black eyeliner, all because their childhood was robbed of fun as their mythical/imaginative brain was destroyed by the concrete-analytical brain they weren’t yet ready for, all in the service of your adult fun-sucking theological hang-ups.

Wow . . . that one still came out way too hot there. And still crazy. Sorry about that.

But really . . . your choice is this: A) play a mildly deceitful game with your child for the sake of pure joy, or B) fight a battle that probably isn’t worth fighting because they will inevitably learn about Santa before they understand the incarnate Christ in a manger anyway.

Also, any time you have the choice between lying to your kids or . . . whatever option B is, you should always choose lying to your kids. Why? Two reasons:

1) it’s fun to lie to your children, and your opportunities are limited (other examples include “vegetables are delicious”, “of course I want to watch Frozen for the eleventh time this week,” and “sometimes mommy and daddy like to wrestle”).
2) Even if you blow the lid on Santa, they STILL won’t believe you if other kids tell them “nuh uh, Santa is real! I saw him!” And that will always always always happen. Hard parenting lesson to learn while they are young: do whatever you think is best, but you still will always lose.

Additionally, there is an oft-repeated fear that our kids will find out that Santa is made up and then conclude that God is made up too. This rumor makes some sense, especially since Santa and God are in the same category in a child’s mind—an entity grown-ups talk about but you’ve never seen, who expects us to behave, and who gives us good things when we do (and both are, of course, old white dudes with beards who live in a far-away and inaccessible location with an army of tiny weird helpers). But y’all, no kid ever makes that jump. They just don’t. Also, these silly mini-humans have zero grasp on reality-vs-fantasy anyway. They think Jedi are real; they think you need to wear gloves to control your ice powers; they think Paw Patrol is a good cartoon; and they think their parents are actually cool. None of these things are true. They will sort out reality just fine later. And if they are later plagued with doubts about God’s existence, it won’t be because they got fooled by the Santa thing when they were 5; it will be because the adults in their world simply refuse to act like the Jesus they claim to follow. (And if you ARE going to lie, please try not to go as far as Megyn Kelly did or Jesus might really need to be thrown out with Santa.)

But seriously, there’s no sense in robbing the kids of childhood joys over your own theological hang-ups. And when they do figure it, just come clean, don’t double down on the myth. At that point, you really are lying.

Editor's Note: Special thanks to John Hill for these delightful questions! Because his questions were selected this week, we'll be sending him his very own "I Read the Bible with Chad and Dave" sticker! If you'd like a chance to win one, too, submit your Christmas- or book-themed questions to Dave and Chad at [email protected]. If we choose to respond to your question on our blog, you'll get your very own sticker! In the meantime, check out the great perks at our Kickstarter for our forthcoming book here.