I’m writing this as someone who has mostly lived in the US and Canada. Personally, I find the whole “lying to children about Christmas” thing just a bit weird (no judgment on those who enjoy this aspect of the holiday). But because it’s completely normalized in our culture, this is something many people have to deal with.
Two questions:
What age does this normally happen? I suppose you want the “magic of Christmas” at younger ages, but it gets embarrassing at a certain point.
And how does it normally happen? Let them find out from others through people at school? Tell them explicitly during a “talk”? Let them figure it out on their own?
Yeah, once you have kids, you realize the magic of Xmas trumps any other potential issues one might have with it.
Kids don’t think about all the issues of “free toys, stranger danger, weirdo in my house, lapsitting on an older dude”.
For them Christmas is pure magic. I would never take this away from my Kids. My eldest knows the truth, he still loves pretending and making my youngest kids believe.
Sometimes the magic of a situation is much more important than the “educational value”. You won’t traumatize your kids by having santa come and have the best morning of their entire year…