Okay, I'd like to add my 2 cents. I don't think it's wrong to tell your kids that Santa is real. However, I couldn't do it with my kids for my own, personal reasons. Mojodragon agreed when I explained my reasoning. To myself, and my husband, finding out that there was no Santa was one of the reasons we started questioning other things our parents had told us. We didn't want that to happen to our kids. So we lied about Santa, what about the Easter Bunny? The tooth fairy? God? Drugs are bad? Ummm.. okay, so that might be a bit far out there, but the thought was valid. Instead, we "play" Santa. Every year, we tell our kids the Santa story. We also tell them stories about the original St. Nick, and different stories from around the world. We talk about different religion's reasons for celebrating the season and why _we_ do. (Consequently, we aren't Christian, but we do teach them about the birth of Jesus right along with every other religion.) Then we tell them that _we_ believe that Santa is a representation of the spirit of giving, and we "play" Santa. They pretend Santa is real and we pretend to be him. And we all know it's pretend, but we have fun anyway. The kids really enjoy "playing Santa" for each other and for other people in the neighborhood, homeless shelters, kids at church, homeschool friends, etc... So why can't we have the best of both worlds?
