My mother has always loved Christmas. Ironically, I think she is more passionate about it BECAUSE she is Jewish not in spite of it. She never had Christmas trees, or Christmas presents or anything that went along with it. As a result Christmas growing up in my house was quite the affair. Often it included multiple trees, a plethora of Christmas cookies and matching, themed wrapping paper. When pressed if Santa Claus was “real” my parents would calmly explain that “when you stop believing in him, he stops coming and that is why grown-ups don’t get presents.” It was a simple, straight forward answer and one that she still sticks to today.

I know some people think that telling your children that Santa Claus is real is somehow undermining their trust in you. Personally, that feels like being the biggest party pooper on Earth. My mother is a painfully honest person. As a matter of fact, growing up she never hung our art on the fridge unless she felt it was really good. If she felt we didn’t put true effort into anything we were told so. My mother is still my harshest critic and when I need honest feedback about anything ranging from my clothes to something I wrote I know I can ask her. Her telling me that Santa Claus was real for approximately five years of my entire life in no way tainted that trust or out-weighted the 33 years of her being painfully honest about everything else in my life.

In addition, I think it is funny that people zero in on Santa Claus to be truthful about. How about the fact that Jesus wasn’t actually born on December 24th? That actually Christians borrowed heavily from pagan rituals when establishing the early Christmas tradition? If we are going to be honest about Santa Claus then why stop there? Why not tell your kids that Christmas actually has very little to do with Jesus Christ but is actually a borrowed Roman holiday? If you are going to be TRULY honest, then by golly be honest, otherwise don’t be such a party pooper.

My point is that as parents, we have THOUSANDS of opportunities to build trust with our children. We have countless opportunities to show them that when it comes to the TRULY important things they can count on us to be honest. Is crushing the magic of the Christmas holiday really an integral part of the path to building trust with your children? Personally, I don’t think so.