I stole this idea from a thread on WB, where the thread got weirdly heated for some reason. I tend to like the level-headed responses I get here a bit more, soooo....

Will you tell your kids Santa is real? Why or why not?

For us, I can't see us telling our kids Santa is real. My parents were very religious and so Christmas was all about the birth of Jesus, so gifts were "in remembrance of the gifts the wise men gave baby Jesus", and our focus was much more religious in nature. My grandparents on my dad's side never even had a tree, since that is a pagan tradition. My mom read me stories about the real origins of Christmas though, and I learned about St. Nick at a young age, so I definitely felt the spirit of Christmas without believing in Santa Clause. Also, every year our family would "adopt" a needy family and get gifts for them, so I was aware at a young age that we were someone else's "Santa." We still had a pretty lavish dinner and gifts night, but they were just always signed from mom and dad, or from our grandparents, or whoever.

I'm not really religious now, and my husband is Hindu and didn't grow up in the US, so he definitely sees Christmas from an outsider's prospective, rather than having strong nostalgic feelings about it from being raised a certain way.

So we'll probably raise our kids to celebrate Christmas with a tree and gifts (because that's fun), but we'll probably teach them the true origins of the Christmas Tree, St. Nick, the Reindeer, etc. I plan to focus more on the idea of giving to those less fortunate, spending time with family, etc.