Your stance on Santa

[x88x]

With all the Christmas stuff and whatnot tonight, I'm curious... What's your history with the man, the myth, the legend? What did your parents tell you? If you have kids, what do you tell them?

My parents never tried to make me or my sister believe. Sure, it was a fun story, but that's it. We knew all the presents came from our parents, etc. Heck, I was 21 before I ever even heard of a "Santa gift" (and that was at work!). IDK if they had a higher moral reason, just thought it was silly, or what, but they never once pretended that it was real. And personally, I wouldn't have it any other way. IMO it adds a lot to the appreciation of the holiday, not having some story muddling what's going on. I think I would appreciate receiving a gift from someone I know and love much more than from some random dude I've never met. I don't have kids yet (heck, don't even have a girlfriend... <_< >_> ), but when I do, I plan to do the same.

Anyways, for clarification, I'm not trying to mock anyone's beliefs or values, I'm just curious. What's your story?

[Lothair]

Heathen! You don't believe in Santa Clause?? Looks like you're having a one way ticket to... uh... Huh. So that's why.

Anyways, I would have to say that my childhood memories of Santa Clause are worth their weight in gold. The pure "magicalness" of it all has inspired creativity and imagination within myself that I am greatly appreciative for.

That and just the feeling of waking up early in the morning and running down the stairs at the speed of happiness to find that some crazy fat dude jumped down my chimney, ate some stale cookies that we left out in a random location, and then left presents under a tree (of all things) decorated with sparkly s*** out the wazzu is just a feeling I wouldn't trade for all the Twinkies in the world. Maybe a large box of Ding Dongs. Definitely for a Klondike Bar.

By the way, does anyone else think it's incredibly morbid and barbaric what we do to trees? We go out into the middle of a forest, repeatedly swing a block of sharpened metal into the base of a tree, drag the remains through a mile of snow and then tie it to the top of a car (it doesn't get to be inside where it's warm), bring it back home, stick it into some water so it DIES SLOWER and then we decorate the s*** out of it.

Aside from the whole higher-intelligence thing, that's essentially the same as hooking a dying person up to a life-support system to prolong their inevitable death, throwing glittery s*** on them and then leaving presents underneath them which, by the way, they don't get any of. Yeah.

Edit: So in other words yes, I will definitely be continuing these awesome traditions when I finally have kids of my own.

[CorsePerVita]

My parents got away with it for a while till I caught my dad wandering off in the middle of the night putting gifts under the tree. He spilled the beans and told me not to tell my sister.

So of course, the first time she pissed me off I spilled the beans to ruin her day.

Had to laugh at the robot chicken christmas special.... the dad tells the story about how santa lived in their town and played for the cubs, etc... and then he goes to sleep... "The greatest trick jimmy's dad pulled off was convincing little jimmy that santa actually existed" and the little kid is looking around the room piecing it all together thinking santa exists.

[dr.walrus]

I was always told he wasn't real. And the easter bunny. And the tooth fairy. I could redeem teeth for cold, hard, 50 pence pieces whenever I wanted.

I pulled out so many teeth early.

[slaveofconvention]

I don't really remember my childhood santa stance lol - but I remember my 3 year old son (well 3 and 11 months) looking me in the eye and telling me he didn't believe in Santa because it was a silly idea and he wanted to say thankyou to the people who really got him the presents.....

Scary kid... Nice, but scary lol

[farlo]

i don't feel it was necessary to lie to my kids about imaginary things, santa included.

[BuzzKillington]

The only fictional character I thought was real was the gingerbread man... my kindergarten teacher was very convincing! I eventually asked the teacher if he died because they were leaving like 200' trails of crumbs and gumdrops from our class to the cafeteria.

Oh, I also believed in leprechauns because in 1st grade we went on a field trip to Torrey Pines and I found a rusted up U thing, I'm guessing it was some sort of nail, but my teacher told me it was probably a horseshoe to a leprechauns horse. -.-

[Mark_Hardware]

Hey, wtf do you mean Santa isn't real??? MOOOMMM! These guys said that Santa Claus isn't reeaall!

[TheGreatSatan]

I don't lie to my kids about Santa, Jesus, the Easter Bunny or any of that imaginary stuff

[Xpirate]

I don't like the deception of Santa. But, we deceived our child this year by getting "Santa" presents. Children figure it out when they get older.

Religious folks should disagree with this kind of deception. They want their children to believe in their religion, but then they present Santa, tooth fairy and all that other stuff that is just made up. That's more than enough to confuse a child.