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At what age and how do you tell children about the truth of Christmas? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by Clymene@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I'm writing this as someone who has mostly lived in the US and Canada. Personally, I find the whole "lying to children about Christmas" thing just a bit weird (no judgment on those who enjoy this aspect of the holiday). But because it's completely normalized in our culture, this is something many people have to deal with.

Two questions:

What age does this normally happen? I suppose you want the "magic of Christmas" at younger ages, but it gets embarrassing at a certain point.

And how does it normally happen? Let them find out from others through people at school? Tell them explicitly during a "talk"? Let them figure it out on their own?

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[-] ZagamTheVile@lemmy.world 44 points 1 year ago

I have 3 kids. I've never lied to them about Santa. I've always told them that the idea behind Xmas was kindness and giving and left it at that, and that the whole Santa thing was just a fun story to play along with, like the tooth fairy or social equality.

[-] BlueEther@no.lastname.nz 10 points 1 year ago

We have 2 kids, and never said that Santa was real and that some of our friends believed that it was the 'birth' of a scarred person to them - we talked about solstice etc. The second of our kids had an unwavering belief in Sant until about a month a go - then she accused us of lying to her that Sant was real - some battles you just cant win

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this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023

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