Santa's not real

I agree.

Not because I am a miserly niggardly little bastard hoping to destroy all shared cultural values, spread my miserable cantankerousness, and undermine every decent shred of behaviour in your civilised society, taking the innocence of childhood with me. Pft.

All days are special, from beginning to finish, start to end, cord to nail. I see my job as a parent is to open my arms wide to the feeling of it all; whether prompted by the tiniest detail or the biggest view, and it doesn't matter if it's unknowable at both ends, there is still human emotion to be found there.

So I fully agree with this:

'Arguing that a belief in Santa Claus injects magic into childhood is, in my view, rather cynical. It tacitly implies that the world by itself is insufficient to inspire a child with awe and delight. That is simply untrue. A child can be astounded by the smallest brush-flick of nature – the spinning sycamore seed, the sea, snow – they don't need to be lied to.'

Yes, yes, yes. Plus I am crap at lying. Especially about something so blatantly unsupportable as a bloke in a red one-suit. I would probably find it easier to lie about an adulterous affair than Father Christmas. At least I could invent an entire fantasy rationale about that. But the first question about Father Christmas would send me spinning into a mumbling wreckage of um. umumumum. um.

Although I have to observe that any honesty I've used with my children has not worked particularly well either, if the goal has been to coerce children into agreeable behaviours.

 Squirrel, there is no fat man dressed in Coca-Cola brand identity to come busting down the chimney.

No, mummy. But there is a child-eating eagle living in the rafters. Which is why I'm not going up for a bath, not going upstairs early, and not going to bed before midnight.