It was December 1961. Mrs. Wales was my second grade teacher at Kelton Elementary school – she was universally considered to be a battleaxe spinster – but also the teacher you remember when you are older as one of the most important persons in your youth. She was approaching retirement and “old school” – back when you actually expected your students to learn things, and not worry about their “Self esteem”.
President Kennedy has just launched the race to the moon six months earlier. Mrs Wales viewed our education as much more than practicing our McRuffy cursive writing and learning our numbers – we needed to get our minds around math and science to prepare us for the world we were about to join..
The focus of much of what we did was creating scrapbooks about the things we were learning about – construction paper with crayon drawings with stars and glue and stickers of things we were learning about. At the end of the portion of the year, the books were bound together and sent home to our parents to admire and provide permanent memories for us.
One of the scrap books was a book about the moon, sun and all the nine planets and the mlky way and the rocket ships we were going to help build to get us to the moon. None of us 2nd graders believed going to the moon was possible, at least not in our lives – let alone by 1969.
Another important scrap book was the dinosaurs. We learned about the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Brontosaurus [which turned out to be a classification mistake], the triceratops, the stegosaurus… Pittsburgh is the home of the Carnegie Musuem of Natural history, one of the best in the world. The Dinosaur room made it clear that this huge creatures that lived up until 66 million years ago were not just something in Fred Flinstone’s cartoons.
Back to the story… Mrs Wales got our attention and announced she had something important we all needed to know. “There is no Santa Claus. It’s a story that your parents have told you, and there may have been a man who lived a long time ago in another part of the world, but the jolly old man in the red suit with the reindeer who gives presents at Christmas is just your parents.”
I was shocked. We cried. I didn’t believe her. Other classmates eventually volunteered they already knew this, and in fairly quick order it all made sense and that was that.
Then another of the brighter students, one that was really troubled by this news asked…. “Does this mean Jesus is just a story that our parents made up, too?”
If you’ve had kids (which I have not and the prospects look likely that will change)… how did you handle this situation? When did you (or your kids) find out about Santa Claus? With the story of the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, how did you convince your children that the story of Jesus is different? What do you think about parents telling their children from the beginning that Santa Claus doesn’t exist?
Telling your kids from the beginning that Santa isn’t real- You have to be a communist.
As far as them finding out I think it is a big kabooki dance- you try to avoid the subject for one more year lest they hear the truth- while they avoid the subject at the same time so you don’t find out that they know he isn’t real and they get screwed out of gifts.
My oldest is 15 positive he knows, girl 12 (she is just toying with us) girl 11 ( awe she is toying with us, also).
The tooth fairy has missed many appointments so he is done (though they still leave the tooth and occasionally we don’t forget). Did you know i-tunes gift card work like money?
They know Jesus is real but we don’t have a cogent policy that makes it all work.
I guess I am an unknowing Communist then. We never taught our kids that Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc were real. We did teach them that Jesus, Peter, Paul, etc were real historical figures and not make believe.
If that makes me a commie, so be it.
I had no problem letting my 2 kids believe in Santa while they were young. The magic ends sometime, why hurry it along or never let it happen at all ?
I remember believing when i was very little, and i don’t recall when i found out the real story. But i survived and passed the magic along to my little kids.
Now they have their own kids and are letting them believe too.
This year was great, my oldest grandkid, 4.5 years old, believes.
His eyes would get big when talking about Santa.
On Christmas eve, his mom (my daughter), was reading him a story before bedtime.
His Dad went outside, and under grandson’s window he started to jingle some sleigh bells. Grandson heard it, and told his mom he hears Santa and has to go to bed now.
Magical times when one is at that age.
I would never dispel the magic of Santa or the Tooth Fairy to my 9 yr-old. She understands that some of the gifts are bought by mommy and me but some are from Santa. Regarding Jesus, and with all due respect to my friends here, I grew up Jewish Orthodox, so I can logically explain that to my daughter. Still, I love Christmas and what it means. We sort of celebrate our version of “Chrismakkah” with both a tree and a menorah. My mom and dad must be turning in their graves, but when I see my little one radiating happiness early morning on the 25th it makes it all worthwhile. Heck, my little one even gets letters from Santa and the Tooth Fairy.