About the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus
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photo source: Rise of the Guardians
While I think that I had a pretty good childhood, for one reason or another, I’ve chosen to do some things differently than my parents did. Oh, some things are the same: Sauerkraut and Pork, Ice Cubes and Christmas Trees, and Nanna’s Apple Pie.
Daughter of not one, but TWO public school teachers, I kinda jumped ship when I decided to teach my kids at home. And then there’s that whole thing about the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus.
We don’t do those here.
Please, please, PLEASE do not take offense. I don’t think it’s bad if you do. We just chose something different.
Worrying about the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus.
I did, however, stress about this major big time for the first seven years of parenting. STRESS. MAJOR. BIG. TIME.
I felt pressure from many different sides as I went back and forth in my thinking about the issue of Santa and his other mythological buddies. And a couple years ago, I even asked my eldest if he felt cheated that he’d never had an Easter basket. He just laughed.
Apparently not.
I bring this up NOT to convince anyone to my point of view or to justify my own position. I bring this up for several reasons:
- I know other young moms are like me 10 or 15 years ago, wondering what to do. (I’m guessing some folks have never thought to do otherwise than what they’ve always done.)
- I think we’re all big girls here and can share our reasons without getting in a cat fight. (Please don’t prove me wrong on that.)
- Folks still deciding can benefit from hearing a variety of perspectives in a non-confrontational way
Every December and March, I think about talking about this, but I know those months are too heated to have a discussion about it. But, July? Yeah, we can talk and share what we do, encourage someone else, and (hopefully) not feel judged that someone else does something different. Right?
So, I’ll tell my story and you can tell yours in the comments. 😉
Why we do what we do:
In a nutshell, here’s our basic reasons.
Santa: As a young Christian in my teens, I saw in my own thinking a confusion between God and Santa. God would only give me something I wanted if I was good enough. I know that’s not true, but I struggled for years with those assumptions. For me, it was better not to “play Santa” and to avoid any confusion between the myth and the Maker.
We do stockings and presents, but our kids know the presents are from us, purchased with funds that God gave us.
The Easter Bunny: I consider Easter to be the most important Christian holiday, representing Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross in payment of my sins. Yes, I know it falls on the pagan holiday honoring a fertility goddess, symbolized by a rabbit. I get that.
But again, to avoid confusion as to what we were celebrating, we opted out of “da Bunny”. We do eggs as a talking point about new life, and we do lots of things to prepare for Easter, but we don’t do Easter baskets.
The Tooth Fairy: I honestly have no idea why we never instituted the Tooth Fairy tradition. We jest about her. She’s a big spender at our house.
I always thought it was best to let kids enjoy Christmas and all of the familiar traditions but this weekend my son who is 9 almost 10 caught me! I thought I was shocked more than him but he is devistated!!!! He has been so upset with me all day! I have had four kids and this is the only time we ever discussed this with any of them. He now has a ton of questions. He cried all night too! I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have waited so long or if I should have reacted differently! I understand now why some don’t wait so long for sure.
Hoping everyone is doing better today. I remember being very sad when I learned that, about the same age. I was the eldest of five, so my mom had an interest in keeping me in the dark.
Thanks for sharing your story. I’m a homeschooling mom of my 7 year and almost 3 year son. I have been wanting to tell me daughter but, just did not know how to approach it. I sometimes wish we never started. son is still young to understand. we don’t do pictures Santa or the Bunny in awhile. I have been doing the elf on the shelf. I could really use some so good advice about explain to my daughter.. thanks again
I found your post after a neighbor confronted me about my 11 year old daughter spilling the beans about the tooth fairy to one of her sons. I have raised 2 children, and in both cases, my husband and I have chosen to tell our kids the truth. For Christmas, we have shared that St. Nicolas was a wonderful man who used the gift of generosity that God asks us to do to bless some people, so we use that tradition of blessing them as our children with gifts out of our love for them.
For Easter we did give them candy in a basket, but they knew it was from mom and dad and that again they were being blessed because Jesus blessed us with the most miraculous gift we could ever ask for. The egg carton symbols from the Christian book store were fun to go through to teach them the true meaning of Easter. What is more important, their salvation or a few years of pretend that make your children not want to trust you later in life.
Most importantly, my husband and I chose to never lie to our kids. When you lie, even for fun, it comes back to bite you. Deception breeds deception, and we never wanted our kids to feel as if they had to lie to us. Love them, and they love you back. Lie to them, and they will learn to lie back.
I will never forget when one of the neighbor boys found out in school that his mother had lied to him all of these years about Santa. She even had Santa visit him each year to obtain his list. When he learned the truth at school from one of our other neighbor boys, he felt betrayed and embarrassed for believing, especially because his mom went to such exaggerations to make him believe in Santa. When he came home and confronted her, she angrily approached the other child’s parents. Her son, however, went to other neighbor kids and asked the question to them, including our son, who was the same age to the day. When the truth was acknowledged, that poor boy was so embarrassed. He went home and sat in his room for weeks. He would come home from school and not speak to him mom. He felt betrayed. The situation only confirmed to us that we would never deceive our children, even if meant for fun
At our house we don’t do the Santa thing or the Easter bunny. But I do make it a point to tell my children that some people do. I give our reasons, Christian have you, but some other personal reasons as well. I do make it a point to tell them that other people do. and that just because they do doesn’t mean they are bad or anything. just different. not everyone has the same convictions and that’s OK. i tell them that everyone has a soul and we need to love and respect them.
We do stockings and baskets but for both teach that they are a fun story like Tinkerbell. Santa has been harder on this front since the culture we live in is inundated with a Santa narrative and it is in part rooted in truth. We add one that Jesus, his birth, death, resurrection, teaching, and miracles are real stories that actually happened. The big dilemma I have in all this is how to teach my children how to talk to “believing” friends. I have already had some problems with this with my four year old. We have made it clear that it isn’t her job to tell other kids “the truth” and why but it is pretty rough when your kids feel like they have “the truth.” What do you do on this one?
That is a hard one, especially among chatty children. I’m not really sure other than encourage her to talk mor eabout Jesus’ birthday and to focus on that part of the truth, the best part. 🙂