Santa, Toothfairy and the Easter Bunny...

 No, this is not the opening to a Joke. Well it could be...I suppose.

This is actually about the stories we tell our kids. 

Or in the case of our family, the stories we do not tell our kids. 

Now what does this have to do with Santa? Well let me tell you a story. When I was 4 years old, I asked my dad how Santa was going to get into our house because we didn’t have a chimney. He tried to explain it to me by creating a fanciful tale. But it didn’t make any sense to me. It was full of logical holes. So I thought, he’s LYING to me. What else is he lying about? In my 4 year old brain, it totally undermined the credibility of my dad and step-mom. It was a very disappointing moment for me. 

I didn’t want my kids to think that of me or my husband. One of the things my husband and I did before we had kids was have a deep conversation about stuff. I know, radical! It was important to me was to have an open dialogue between us as parents and the kids. I wanted our kids to know that we would always tell them the truth about things, that we were reliable places to come for information. And that they can always come to us for anything. 

Think about it this way: if someone keeps telling you little white lies, how can you tell the lie from the truth? And then if you find out someone has been lying to you for years, how can you ever trust them? I have personally held back so much information from my parents even when I really needed their help. Why? Because I didn’t trust them. Not just because the Santa thing, but for many other things. It was just an environment that didn’t foster openness. 

Now you may say, but TRADITION!!!!

Well, a fault of my personality is I like to do research. So when you look critically at things, you find that many traditions are of religious origins, and unfortunately we do not believe in the Abrahamic mythology in our family. Of those religious holidays, a lot of things have been co-opted by corporations as moneymaking opportunities. Other holidays have been twisted to celebrate colonization and the destruction of native culture. And that’s not what I want to pass on to my kids.

We have secularized a lot of the holidays. We give gifts, but they come from our family because we love each other, not from Santa. Easter is about egg hunts and celebrating the Spring. Mom and dad leave money under your pillow when you loose a tooth. 

We don’t celebrate Columbus Day or Cinco de Mayo. But we will Celebrate Black Heritage Month (Feb) and Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept) because we want to celebrate these cultures as they wish to be celebrated, not just a as an excuse to wear a sombrero and drink tequila. 

Every family has things that are important to them, traditions, beliefs, etc. This is what is important to us. You may have a very different view. And that is OK. It is important to us to teach that people have different belief systems and that there  is no ONE right way to do things. This is just what we do in our family.