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Santa Claus in the ASD household




Santa Claus is one of those magical memories of early childhood; it's an act, a play, an annual daydream. I understand that for many children and many families, Santa Claus is part of what makes the holiday special.

We had a few discussions about Santa Claus in my oldest son's early life--and we decided that in our house, there would be no Santa. Our reasons for it were pretty simple: Santa Claus is a lie. There are reasons for invoking that particular lie--but they're not reasons my oldest would have understood; what he would have clearly seen and known was that we'd lied to him. We'd told him that Santa Claus existed, when we knew, in fact, that he didn't. We would pretend to be Santa.

I think he would have enjoyed it, for what it's worth. I think he would have enjoyed the mystery and the desire to catch Santa in the act; I think he would have enjoyed the idea of someone sneaking into the house to leave presents.

But I think he would have also been very, very unhappy when the truth--as it always does, because it's some small part of coming-of-age--got out. Telling him that we were lying to him because it was a game wouldn't have worked because, in the way of small children everywhere, he would have argued that Santa did exist because his parents had told him so.

In his universe, it would have eroded his trust in us. It would have added an element of doubt and confusion that we felt would make things more difficult for him; he needed to believe that we were explaining the world as it actually was when he asked for explanations.

However, the question of Santa Claus did arise in grade one. The kids in his class were, of course, talking about Christmas, presents, and what they wanted from Santa. They probably did this in junior and senior kindergarten as well, but in the classroom environment of that time, he didn't pick up on it; with the grade one Teacher, he became slowly comfortable enough that he could. The other children absolutely insisted Santa Claus existed, and he came home to ask me about it.

So. I didn't want him to run back to school and insist that Santa did not, in fact, exist, but I didn't want to put myself in the position of agreeing, for the reasons mentioned above.

What I eventually said (because I'd been thinking about it for years) was this:

Santa Claus is a story we tell our children. It's not a lie, but like stories--The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which was one of the few books he liked as a small child--it's not factual. It's meant to evoke excitement and anticipation; it's meant to be a happy thing.

But, he said, one of the girls in his class insisted that Santa Claus really existed--her parents had told her so, and she absolutely believed them. This, of course, made sense to my son; he believed his own parents, after all. Why did her parents say this if it wasn't the truth?

I didn't want him to feel any scorn or derision; I didn't want him to be outraged by the idea that the parents were involved in an elaborate hoax.

"Because they love the story. It's a story they were told as children. It's a story they believed as children, and when your classmates have children of their own, they're likely to tell their own children the same story, for the same reason. Santa Claus doesn't exist, except as part of that story, but it's a happy story, and people want to share some of that happiness."

"But the children believe in him." (He called his classmates the "children" for a very long time.)

"Yes. Yes, they do."

There was a pause while he digested this. He finally said, "But it's okay to believe in Santa Claus?"

I said, "Yes. We can't tell you he exists in the real world, but yes--it's okay to believe it if you want."

And he said, "I think I'd like to believe it, then."

It was a very odd conversation, but in hindsight, I'm happy with it.


Dec. 3rd, 2010 07:00 am (UTC)
I know at least one person who got in trouble for telling her (non-Jewish) classmates that "Santa is your parents."

I really wanted to avoid his doing this. It only became a problem in grade one, because in grade one he actually started to pay attention to some of what the other kids said. But I think he sometimes thought other children were like space aliens; he didn't expect to understand them.