ARGH. b77 won't let me post, every time I hit Submit it says 'oh there are new posts would you like to review yours?' I don't know why I'm even getting into discussions here when there is mistletoe to be hung and pierogies to make.
Anyway.
I think I was rude earlier. My apologies, Maria. Now I remember that test...I think I tried to take it once and got bored. Now I tried to take it again and came upon a question that I could not choose either answer to, so I gave up. Don't know what that says about me.
I'm not sure Alatar's point is so much about the importance of Santa as about the implication that it is not right to let a child believe in anything that is not fact. There's a huge difference, imho, between letting kids believe in fantasy things, and lying to them. My parents didn't rush to tell me Santa didn't exist, and I don't consider it that they lied to me. They just let me believe in something that it is valuable for a child to believe in, until I was ready to figure out that it wasn't true.
Jewel, you never told them he was real, but don't kids take everything for granted in their earliest years? We gradually learn to distinguish truth from fantasy and sometimes closure comes through a question...sometimes the belief just fades away naturally. So...well, you didn't tell them outright he was real, but did you tell them outright that he wasn't?
I understand that every parent and child relationship is different and usually parents know best what their child needs. Can't argue with that. But this sounds dangerously like parents are making sure their kids don't get an opportunity to believe in fairytales, because they would consider this lying.
I don't know.