I know some of you, and maybe even the majority, will think I’m nuts. But here goes anyway: I feel a little bit guilty about teaching Pumpkin about Santa Claus. The thing is, Santa is a myth. But we don’t really represent him as a myth, do we? No, we do the whole story as if he is a real person. I found myself doing it this year. The night before Christmas, we picked out home-baked cookies and put them on a plate with a carrot (for Rudolph), poured a big glass of milk and explained all about the chimney, the flying reindeer, etc. Now, Pumpkin is just 2 and doesn’t have the greatest comprehension yet, but she understood this all pretty well. Well enough, in fact, that when it came time to pick out cookies for Santa, she choose to give him the ones that weren’t her favorites. She believed she was picking them out for a real person that wasn’t her — and wasn’t mama or dada. In the morning, she had a look of pretty gullible amazement on her face when we pointed out the empty milk glass, the missing and munched on cookies and the partially chomped carrot. (On the plus side, she is mixing up Santa with Elmo, who is one of the most important individuals in her life. When I asked her who her presents were from, she said, “Elmo.�)

Here is why I am uncomfortable: I am lying to her when I tell her about Santa. And my policy is honesty all the time. I don’t say we are out of cookies when I don’t want her to have any more — and I don’t let other caregivers do it, either. I just say, “No more.� I don’t make up stories about why we are or are not doing something, I show her respect and tell her the truth — in a way that’s appropriate for a toddler, of course. I just don’t believe in lying. I want to demonstrate in my words and actions that I respect her as an intelligent human being. I hope that will lead to a mutual feeling of trust that will last our whole lives together. I can’t help but wonder if the Santa myth presented as fact is a betrayal of that trust. After all, I am one of her most important sources of information about how the world works. Isn’t it wrong to abuse that power by pretending that Santa is real?

The other day, this issue of honesty came up in relation to a comment my mom made. Pumpkin had received a magnetic doodle pad for Christmas and was playing with it. My mom said something like, “How does this work? It’s magic.� I immediately protested from the next room where I was on the computer. I told my mom that I don’t want Pumpkin to think that everyday objects in her life are controlled by magic. I said to my mom, “We wouldn’t tell her the refrigerator keeps the food cold by magic, why is this any different?�

And in the same way, I feel ambivalent about perpetuating the Santa myth. What do the rest of you moms and dads think? If you have young children, do you feel at all guilty when you talk about Santa? Has anyone decided not to do the Santa deal? And if you have older kids: How did they react when they learned he isn’t real?