I prefer the idea of "santa claus" as a personification, similar to "mother nature" or "old man winter." We humans seem given to celebration around the winter solstice, gathering together somewhere warm, sharing a meal, exchanging gifts, making merriment. Illustrating this phenomenon as a jolly old man that travels the world spreading good cheer works for me. I'm fine with "holiday spirit" wearing a goofy bright red suit and having a distinctive laugh.

I'm also pretty okay with addressing presents "from Santa" for the gift giver to remain anonymous; the legend of the histoical Saint Nicholas heavily involves anonymous gift giving, so I'm okay with carrying out that reference in the modern day.

I'm not sure how useful it is to lead children to believe that there's literally a man that commits hundreds of millions of reverse burglaries every December, especially when a lot of the specific details and trappings of this were made up by retail marketing in the 20th century.