Leading my sons George and Jack to believe in Santa Claus when their skepticism dawned and they asked, “Daddy, is there really a Santa Claus?” was wrong.

As Greta Christina suggests in her rewrite of Francis Church’s answer to eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon, I owed them the truth at every step:

No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus. Love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. But Santa Claus does not exist. He is a story made up by your parents. You should be extremely suspicious of anyone who tells you otherwise.

Telling them the truth would not have been cruel. It would have detracted nothing from my love for them and it would have given them a clearer view of the world they live in. As Greta Christina writes, their hearts would still have been glad :

No Santa Claus! That’s right. He doesn’t live, and he never did. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will still not exist — and no amount of fatuous, manipulative bloviating will make him real. And the heart of childhood is still made glad: by fancy, by poetry, by romance, by beauty and joy, by truth and knowledge, by love and generosity and devotion, and by the boundless magnificence of the universe.

George and Jack one Christmas morning decades ago after Santa's arrival, decades ago in Fayetteville, N.C.

The spices were in a package of special “Reindeer Food” my Aunt Betsy Frink Adams gave one Christmas. So first,  the boys and I put out a tidy pile of sweet oat hay that had actually been purchased to provide warm winter bedding to out pet chickens. Then, we sprinkled the hay with Aunt Betsy’s special stuff.

After the boys were sound asleep, I’d gather up all but a few wisps of the oat hay and sneak it back into the garage. Then I’d use a three-pronged cultivating rake to make reindeer hoof marks over the feeding spot and across part of the lawn, inevitably leaving behind traces of Aunt Betsy’s special mix.

The next morning, the boys’ grandmother’s big Bouvier des Flandres would show persuasive interest in the reindeer tracks (because they were spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg from Aunt Betsy’s “Reindeer Food”).

The existence of reindeer thus affirmed by the ecstatic dog, both sons would settle into another few days of blissfully believing in the Jolly Old Elf who brought them gifts.

It only worked for a year, or maybe two, my sons eventually told me.

Fun though it was, and entirely well-intended, it was still exploitative lying, like the commonplace and commercially convenient newspaper pretense that there is a Santa Claus. But worse. Because I was setting a parental example of socially convenient lying. for fun.

I was showing my love for them, but I wouldn’t do it that way again. There are equally satisfying theatrics that are honest and that do not encourage retreat to unrealistic fantasy worlds. I would choose one we could honestly share for the rest of our lives, not one that evaporated with the end of childhood credulity.

[HT: PZ Myers]

She was during her final years one of three living people who had loved Jack and George Rankin continuously since before they were born.

Now there are two, both in mourning.

Addendum: Obituary

FAYETTEVILLE – Mrs. Louisa Baldwin MacIlwinen, 66, of Fayetteville, passed away Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009, in Cape Fear Valley Medical Center Mrs. MacIlwinen is survived by her sister, Dianne MacIlwinen of Fayetteville; and nephews, George R. MacIlwinen Frink and John M.J. MacIlwinen Frink and wife, Neha and her companion of some decades, Cathy. A private memorial service will be held. Sullivan’s Highland Funeral Service & Crematory of Fayetteville.

Yes, I see. That would make him Frinkinstein – something angry classmates called me when teachers slipped up and shared my IQ.

It’s all genetic, though, like George MacIlwinen and John MacIlwinen being a Frink and having inherited a Jackson neurodegenerative disease?.

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