Is Santa Claus real? Help!!

[Feralpeg]

That may have been one of the sadest moments in my life. DD had sort of questioned Santa for a couple of years. When she'd ask me if he was real, I'd say "What do you think? How else would children all over the world receive gifts in one night?". She was fine with it. Finally, she was 10 years old (yes, I know that is old to still believe - it's easier to maintain with only one child), she asked me again. She said her friends had told her it was the parents. She said "Tell me the truth, Mom". I asked her if she really wanted the truth. She said yes, so I told her. Her eyes immediately filled with big tears. It just killed me. So, I tried to back peddle a little. I told her that for most kids, the parents give the gifts. It just wasn't possible for even Santa to be everywhere. I told her that if you believe enough that Santa is real, it is true. I think she still believes to some extent.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

The spirit is

Perhaps read to him "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clause".

Anewman: My mom's rule as well---No Santa, no presents

ETA: We would tell our daughter the truth--but we also have intergrated the christian side of Christmas from the beginning and we do have a book on the "real" Saint Nicholas.


And here's that letter:

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus
The People’s Almanac, pp. 1358–9. (Originally published in The New York Sun in 1897.)

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

Dear Editor—

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

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 external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

 

[Danemom]

Her eyes immediately filled with big tears. It just killed me. So, I tried to back peddle a little.

I had almost this same thing. DD had asked for a couple years and when she was 10, I 'fessed up. No tears, but she was obviously saddened by my answer. Since then, it's like we never had that conversation.

 

[aunties]

My niece was 4 when she said to me that she didn't believe Santa was real. I asked her why she didn't think so. She explained that there was no way that Santa could visit every house in just one night. I sent her to get her globe. I showed her on the globe where my friends in Italy live and told her at that moment it was in the middle of the night for them. I pointed to where we were and told her it was 7 pm. Then, I pointed to CA where Aunt Evelyn lived and told her it was 4 pm. Then I explained that each line on the globe was an hour apart so Santa really had 24 hours to get to all the houses. She decided that was possible!

 

[Barb D]

We have never told our kids that Santa is real, but maybe what we do say could help you in your situation: "Santa is pretend, but it's fun to pretend, and so we do." We hang stockings, look for Rudolph's nose on Christmas Eve (the red lights on top of radio towers), put out cookies and diet Coke, get 3 presents from Santa because of the three wise men, etc.

 

[ktink]

This past Christmas DD9 asked me the same thing and I just responded with, " Kara Lee, honey, does mama and daddy have a habit of buying you and your sister all kinds of toys just for the heck of it?" She just looked at me and said "No, We know not to bug you in Wal Mart." And that was the end of it.

The funny thing was that I'd like to know when they DON'T bother me at Wal Mart. There's just too much temptation for them to resist asking there.

 

[mickilovesmickey]

We go to great lengths to make Santa real for my children. I think it is one of the magical things in childhood. We leave reindeer tracks outside. Open the window to hear the sleighbells. We leave reindeer food and a peppermint candy to help Rudulph keep his nose glowing. We use different wrapping paper for the Santa gifts. My six year old asked me earlier this year if he was real. I turned it around and asked him what he thought. He said that he believed that he was. But he didn't understand how Santa could be so many places at once...like at the different malls etc. I told him that those were the highest level of elf that looked like him and had to help make appearances. Then he asked why there are commercials on TV for toys that Santa brings, he thought Santa made his toys. I explained that Santa does buy some things now because there are so many children. Then his last question was, why do we get more things than some of my friends. He wanted to know if it was because he had behaved better. I explained that Santa spends the same on every child but then the parents can send extra money if there is a special present that they want their child to receive. I don't feel that this is lying to my children. I am so happy that my parents made a little bit of childhood magic last longer. I totally agree that they need to understand that Christmas is magical whether there is a Santa or not. But there are so few things in your life that will make your heart race until it feels like it is going to come out of your chest. I just want the magic to live on as long as possible. I guess this is the same reason I love Disney.

 

[Deesknee]

We've always told our kids to Never ask a question that they don't really want to know the answer to, because we will never lie to them. That being said when they came to us with this question we simply reminded them of this rule. We would then give them the opportunity to ask it again, usually they would drop the question. When they finally would reask THE question we would reply that Santa stands for sharing, love, giving, gratitude, etc. and that those things are very real. We would also explain, that part of that message is to help others be happy & that Santa makes many many children happy & when their parents want to share the complete message of Santa, they should be able to do so in their own way. Therefor, we should not explain any of our understanding of Santa to anyone else.
So far, this has worked very well.

A side note this "only ask a question when you truly want the truth" worked very well with "where do babies come from" question, and many others.

I wish you good luck. As my SIL says...babies growing up is much harder on the parents than the children. Remember we have all survived "the truth"

 

[Senske]

Check out noradsanta . com on Christmas Eve to see how the North American Aerospace Defense Command (norad . mil) tracks Santa's flight. We've made watching the NORAD Santa tracker a tradition, and it proves Santa is real.

 

[Patsfan7]

I didn't read the entire thread, but here is my suggestion:
Rent the movie, The Santa Clause.
It had me believing, and I saw it when I was probably around 30 or so!!!!!

 

[minnie61650]

We go to great lengths to make Santa real for my children. I think it is one of the magical things in childhood. We leave reindeer tracks outside. Open the window to hear the sleighbells. We leave reindeer food and a peppermint candy to help Rudulph keep his nose glowing. We use different wrapping paper for the Santa gifts. ....so few things in your life that will make your heart race until it feels like it is going to come out of your chest. I just want the magic to live on as long as possible. I guess this is the same reason I love Disney.

My Oldest son now 32 has a very high IQ.
The Christmas before he turned 3 he noticed that one of the gifts from santa had the same wrapping paper as a gift from us.(mom and dad).
He just looked at me so brokenhearted.
I just smiled and said wow I guess Santa's elves like the same kind of paper
I bought!
Well lesson learned-- from than on the elves always used different paper and he and his sister's gifts had their names written in BLOCK PRINT ALL CAPITAL
LETTERS because he knew my handwritting.
He belived the longest time because of these extra things and as he got older and "knew" he didn't let me know because he understood how much Santa meant to me.
He was just remarking last Christmas how those little things helped him beleive so long and how thankful he was I helped prolong the magic.
BTW we always left Milk and chocalate chip cookies for Santa and we baked special cookies for the reindeer too. It was a reciept for special oatmeal cookies. It had oatmeal and honey and brown sugar and MMs. All the things reindeer love.
It's still a favorite Christmas cookie at our house and now my 3 year old granson loves them too.
Linda
93 more days

 

[ksjayhawkfan]

Our oldest is 8. I mentioned that since he was being naughty that Santa would put him on the naughty list....he rolled his eyes and said "Yeah whatever, you mean you wont go through my list and get me something off of it" I just about fell over in shock lol. So we had a talk and we also reminded him that he has a little sister and a baby brother to think about. As for the wrapping paper and the gifts this is what we do....Santa brings one gift and it is left unwrapped

 

[sheluvsflorida]

My family have never been big on the Santa thing, possibly connected to my race, culture etc. When my children asked about Santa I've told them plainly that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus Christ not about the "getting" of material gifts. Sorry to get all heavy here but I'm not going to lie to my children about a commercial creation which is what Santa is. From happy Christmas to Happy Holidays...What next Happy Santa's Day??

By the way my children still have an absolutely fabulous time at Christmas

 

[mermaidlagoon]

Heres the proof......You all want him to be real , you are all reading this for some kind of proof I guess, so here goes...Along time ago I was once a little girl. I really wanted a real baby and I wanted a baby that looked like the ones in 'King and I' so I always asked Santa.....Hmmmm, each year I got another baby DOLL!!!!! I kept believing tho... As I grew older I married and had my babies ...they all looked like me ... Hmmm, kept asking for the little baby I thought would look like the one in ' King and I" or South Pacific (I am caucasian), I kept believing ... So, one Christmas a little unwed girl went into labor, the next day a baby was born while my DH was working at the hospital. He called me up and asked me if I was ready for my new baby girl. She was everything I had always asked Santa for all these years and looked just like the one I always had in my dreams. I told my son (who has Downs' Syndrome and will always believe) that Santa left us a new baby at the hospital. To this day whenever the subject of where babies come from comes up, he says that Kristina was brought by Santa. She, now age 8, still believes this to be true and so do I!!!

Wishes...dream a dream...wishes...dream a dream...just believe and your dreams will come true!



He is real!!

 

[Barb D]

I told my son (who has Downs' Syndrome and will always believe) that Santa left us a new baby at the hospital.
He is real!!

Pictures! We want pictures!

 

[mermaidlagoon]

Pictures! We want pictures!

This didn't work! Please standy by as I try to figure out how to get my picture off of my Kodak "Easy Share"

 

[SueM in MN]

I'm more fond of teaching my kids critical thinking skills than keeping them believing in fantasy. So our response is "what do you think?" And "why do you think that?" As they firm up more on the side of "I don't think so" we start throwing out the idea that "the magic IS the belief" - the whole spirit of Christmas stuff. I firmly believe Santa is real - just not the fantasy Santa - the concept and spirit of Santa. So we are working to shift our kids beliefs from "a physical guy who is magic and lives at the North Pole and has elves" to "the Spirit of Christmas embodied."

That's what we did. When oldest DD was about 5 or 6, she asked. I asked what she thought and why. For that year, she decided that she didn't have enough "proof" that Santa didn't exist. Later that same year, she asked again and decided that Santa didn't physically exist, but the tooth fairy probably did - her reason was that she had gotten too much tooth money from the tooth fairy.
As she got more to the "the magic IS the belief" stage, we covered not taking away the magic from anyone else who still did believ and we talked about my Christmases growing up and how Santa came while we were at church on Christmas Eve, but for some reason, my mom or dad always forgot something and had to go back into the house after the rest of us were all in the car.
My younger DD can't talk, so she didn't ask the questions, but she participated in some of the discussions.

 

[kc10family]

Santa!!!! REAL!!!! I must say, I am beyond sick of “this day and age”! America has gotten to the point where it is almost impossible for children to dream. Magic is in your heart and should be spread like wild fire to all around you. Being “politically correct” has become offensive to me. It is to the point that my children wont be able to say Christmas in the public schools because it might offend someone. Well!! Let me tell you I am beyond offended that I can not in a public forum, outside of a Christian church, celebrate my belief. I’ll get off my soap box now. Santa is real in my heart and family and will always be. Now about Jesus, we have a birthday cake for him to celebrate the true (Christian) meaning of Christmas. This separates Santa and Christ-mas. If a child or adult wants to believe in the magic of Mickey Mouse, Santa or that everyone can be a Princess, then I will let that happen. Why? Because every little girl is a Princess in the hearts of her parents, Mickey Mouse is a wonderful real guy who spreads good fun to everyone. And America needs to have good wholesome fun back. When the time comes, I think my girls will understand that Santa is about the Magic and Jesus is why.

(sorry for the soap box, but I had to let that out)

 

[Barb D]

This didn't work! Please standy by as I try to figure out how to get my picture off of my Kodak "Easy Share"

You need to upload the picture to a web site, like http://www.photobucket.com, and then copy the URL to your post.

 

[mermaidlagoon]

I got it figured out!!!!

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b338/mermaidlagoon/CopyofDCP_0138.jpg
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b338/mermaidlagoon/DCP_0204.jpg
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b338/mermaidlagoon/DCP_0114.jpg
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b338/mermaidlagoon/100_0548.jpg
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b338/mermaidlagoon/100_0521.jpg
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b338/mermaidlagoon/dep_show_line_item-6.jpg

OK, I got carried away.