OT: Belief in Santa

On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 18:26:26 GMT, "Oliver Wong" <owong@castortech.com>
wrote:

>    Sounds like good advice, and one that I will probably apply (since I
>very much don't like the idea of lying, even in the context of the existenc
e
>of Santa Claus to little children). I don't know the story of Saint Nichola
s
>of Smyrna though, so that'll probably be something I have to look up by the
>time I start having kids.

One nice solution is to replace "lying" with "playing".   My wife is a
very poor liar, and Santa always was a game without a lot of emotion
invested in believing.   (My son made sure we knew that he never
stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy - and wanted the money).

Parents can invite the kids to share in the Santa game the same way as
they do the Spiderman game.

It's the concept of movies such as _Polar Express_, where the object
of the movie is to show that belief is the most important thing that
bothers me.    Belief in Santa?   It's not what you believe in - it is
that you believe in some fiction that's important.

It should bother Judson more, as in the long run, this teaches people
that this very important belief has nothing to do with reality.