How do you answer your children when they ask you if Santa is real?

For 10 years my wife and I have done what parents do at Christmas. We watch all the commercials with our kids and notice which toys they "really want this year"...With my 5 year old daughter it's nearly every one...My son, at 10 years old, has gotten more selective and more expensive with his wish list.

We take our list with us one Saturday and spend the day trying to get them as much as our ever thinning Christmas budget allows. We come home and find some place in the house the kids don't usually go and hide them.

Last year ,a few days before Christmas, I asked my son to go under the house to get something for me. No sooner had the words left my mouth when I remembered that was where we had hidden the presents.

I knew the time was coming that he'd start to question things like the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. By the 5th grade it's just a matter of time until kids start to put the pieces together. Either by their increased skepticism or by their friends older brothers or sisters who already know the real story, questioning if Santa is real or not is just a matter of time.

I remember as a kid looking all though our house to find where my parents had hidden our gifts and I guess maybe I learned how it must have felt for my parents when they realized their kids really didn't believe in Santa anymore.

The feeling I had when my son told me he knew we got him the things he asked for was one of a lost innocence and I felt responsible for it. I can't expect to believe that at his age he wouldn't catch on eventually but part of me wanted him to hold on to believing for just a little longer.

When my son asked me about the existence of Santa though I had a rush of memories and feelings that made answering the question infinitely more difficult than just a yes or no. Of course there is no real Santa but is that really what Christmas is about?

Santa Claus, real or otherwise, is more than any one person could ever be.

Believing in Santa is more about believing in the spirit of giving and sharing special times together with family and friends. Believing is about the feeling we all get on Christmas morning when we come down from our room and see all the presents under the tree. Age has no bearing on that feeling and whether you open one present or a hundred, it's a feeling that, for me, always makes me feel like a kid again.

I thought for a while about how to answer my son and I told him that Santa is as real as we want him to be. I told him that Santa is still real for me because of the feeling I get when I let myself believe.

If believing in something so simple can make me feel like a kid again then I always want to believe.

I believe in the smiles I see on children's faces. I believe in the spirit that Christmas brings. I wish every day were Christmas and people held doors for each other or let you get back in a long line at the store because you forgot something....and the people who took your money actually said "Merry Christmas" and not just because their boss told them to but because maybe, just maybe they still believe too.

Maybe there really is a Santa and he's in every one of us that allows ourselves to believe.

Learn more about this author, Michael Murphy.
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