Of course, I fully agree with Dan (well I would wouldn’t I). Christmas (and other events) with kids is great and I loved all the fancifulness of it, including the Santa idea. With all the kids we ‘pretended’ there was a Santa, but always confessed to the pretence as soon as questioned by the child. In my experience children ask all the important questions early on – often before the age of 3-4 – and I strongly believe people raising children have an obligation to answer such questions honestly at whatever level the child can understand – so none of them were brought up with belief that there was someone coming into the house and leaving presents or eating the mince pies we left out. But that didn’t detract from the excitement and fun of it all for me nor, I hope, for the kids. If you are ‘all’ involved in the pretence, and everyone knows that it’s just pretend, then it’s still fun – possibly even more so because of the emotional security that comes from being ‘in’ on it. To actually lie about it when challenged (especially when you both know you are doing it) potentially leads to unequal relationships where people simply ‘don’t talk about certain things’.
In terms of teaching your children that people you trust can be deceitful my approach was through games. Once my kids were able enough to play games on the same competitive level as me and having (I hoped) instilled in them the appropriate ethical approach to ‘fairness’ and ‘trust’ in fellow-game players – I proceeded to cheat. I did this until ‘spotted’ at which point I immediately ‘fessed up. I hoped this balanced keeping the ‘trust’ in our relationship – by confession of a deliberate, and harmless(?) transgression – with teaching them that even people you trust can deceive you, so beware. It also coincided with the age at which Dan (and his siblings) start to clarify their own views on life and ethics (about 7-8) so was also useful for inspiring debate! And boy can they debate……