First, they quietly ask: How does Santa get down the chimney? How does Santa travel around the whole world in one night? Does Santa really have reindeer that fly? Is the Santa at the mall the real Santa?
Then it moves to: Are you Santa?
And finally: Is Santa real?
This is the evolution of questions that happen for our kids as they start moving from a magical mindset to a logical one. As they learn more about life and how things work, they start questioning what they’ve learned about Santa.
But those questions are so much more complicated than just a yes or a no.
My young kids haven’t believed in the Tooth Fairy or Easter Bunny for many years. This change in belief didn’t matter much to me. Nothing was lost when they stopped believing in those imagined creatures. But the end of the belief in Santa feels so different. It feels like the closing of a chapter, the end of the belief in Christmas magic. 
Is it possible to keep the magic alive even without a belief in Santa?
Believing in Santa represents a belief in hope and love. It is a belief in something beyond us that we don’t completely understand. It is belief in collective excitement. It is light, peace, comfort, and joy. It is a belief in magic and that makes our souls dance.
We can help our children hold on to the feeling by helping them understand what Santa teaches us.
Santa teaches us what it means to believe in something we can’t see or touch. This is something we start to forget how to do as we get older. But the ability to believe will come up many times throughout our lives – belief in self and others, belief in love and goodness, belief in abilities and truth. What would it look like if we could believe with wonder, hope, and joy?
Santa teaches us the joy that comes from dreaming and hoping. Remember making Christmas lists and all the excitement that came with hoping and wondering? Whether you got the present you wanted or not, the joy that comes from dreaming is pure. What if we continued to dream with such assurance and passion? What if we hoped for the biggest, wildest dreams in our heart with the abandon of a child and not the logic of an adult?
Santa teaches us the power of storytelling. The beautiful story of Santa has been told for generations – passed down with love, connecting those before us and those that come after. In keeping alive the story of Santa, we learn to keep our own stories alive. Stories of happy family memories, traditions, and the truth of who we are.
The story of Santa invites everyone in. It brings together people of different backgrounds, beliefs, faiths, and perspectives. Everyone is welcome to join in the story and create their own traditions within it. What are the stories — of you, your family, your beliefs — that you want to keep alive? How can you welcome all into those stories?
Giving Up the Magic. Again.
I wonder if part of the reason it feels so hard to watch our children abandon their belief in Santa is because it feels like it is happening to us all over again. There is nothing like watching the excitement and joy in our children’s faces around Christmas. The energy is palpable when they believe in Santa. When that starts fading for them, maybe it starts fading for us, too. I don’t want to lose the magic.
I believe Santa is real. Not as a big, jolly guy dressed in red. Not as me being Santa to my kids. But as an idea and a spirit that is bigger than any one person; as a magic that has existed for generations.
What I want my children to embody by knowing Santa is how to believe in something they can’t touch; how to have faith in something intangible and mysterious. I hope they will always know the biggest dreams in their hearts and hope for them with the joy and passion of a child. I want them to know their stories — and the stories that exist all around them — and welcome all kinds of people into those stories.
This is what I want to endure even when the bearded guy in red is no longer the central focus of Christmas.
