Milk and cookies. Decorated trees. Presents. Out of all enduring symbols and traditions of Christmas, Santa Claus is the best known. The image of a jolly, white-bearded arbiter of good and bad is deeply ingrained in the minds of children all around the world, as is the moment they learn he is not real. For all of the fuss and future crisis it will bring to people’s lives, the tradition of gaslighting children into believing Santa is real does not make sense.
At times, it seems like the blatant moral implications of the practice are ignored. Convincing children that Santa is real is blatant lying, and creates conflict and mistrust in their parents when they inevitably find out the truth.
According to University of New England clinical psychologist Kathy McKay, parents that maintain the Santa lie can subconsciously install mistrust in their children who may start trusting them less knowing that their parents can maintain lies over the course of many years. This is especially prevalent when the Santa myth is used as a method of control: parents struggling to find presents for their children often brush it off as being Santa’s fault, which may cause children to generate false notions of their own behavior.
That can also lead to materialistic sentiment. If a child is rewarded exclusively through things they want to own, a subconscious association is established where good deeds are only done in exchange for presents, rather than being behavior that is generally exemplified. By avoiding the story of Santa, on the other hand, parents can teach their children to find joy in non-materialistic pleasures, like gratitude, generosity and spending time with family.
Given the eventual implications of the lie, the effort involved in maintaining the Santa myth is just not worth it. Not only do parents have to balance out the gift-giving process with their perception of their child’s deeds, but as children get older, they naturally start questioning the practice, finding contradictions in the story. How can Santa get across the world so fast? Does he not get tired? How can he carry so many gifts?
Trying to explain all of these points is too much hassle, especially when kids will figure the truth out soon enough. If parents cave in early and admit to the lie at the first sign of their child’s skepticism, then the schtick was not maintained long enough for it to be worth the effort. If they keep going and manipulate their children into believing Santa is real, then the eventual discovery will put the extra years of effort to waste.
Santa is a relatively new corporate invention: The modern depiction of Santa Claus was nothing more than an advertisement employed by Coca-Cola in the early 20th century. Outside of the Western world, including in regions that do not celebrate Christmas, that commercial power has cemented Santa as a distinctly secular symbol of Christmas.
In those places, Santa still maintains his role representing the holiday, yet has no tradition or significance attached. He is to Christmas what pumpkins are to Halloween: a symbol that merely signals the start of a “holiday season.” Santa is still a well-known tradition, but does not derive his iconicness from a lie. In other words, Santa does not need to sow mistrust and tension to continue being a tradition.
Some might argue that Santa Claus is in fact, real. The story of Saint Nicholas, and the thousands of years it has been part of the Christmas experience, cannot simply be ignored. The tale of a jolly, child-loving, chimney-sweeping old man is just the amalgamation of centuries of tradition. There is, however, a fine line between telling children a legend, like the Chupacabra or Big Foot, and convincing them that something is real. The story of Santa can still be preserved as a folk-tale, a tradition passed through generations that is very obviously not true. No child will be lied to, no tradition lost. The holiday experience can be just as strong, without telling children a made-up story.
