As your children age, most parents start to worry about the day when they’ll stop believing in the magical creatures we work hard to cultivate. How will we deny the truth? Will we deny it? How will we keep it from ruining the magic for their younger siblings/cousins/friends?

There are no right or wrong answers to these questions. Some people believe that . . .

creating the illusion of these characters is lying to your child, others believe it is a right of passage, still others are absolutely devastated when their child realizes the truth and others break the myth to children at very young ages. Of course, as parents you have the right to choose whichever of the above scenarios you pursue with your children. Once children begin school though, you will see that the control over these questions move from you to the kids that your child is with daily.

In our house, I am not looking forward to the day when I have to secretly confirm the truth while keeping it from the younger siblings who hopefully still believe. I watch my children year after year as they anticipate the excitement of Christmas, Easter, and each time they lose a tooth. I feel it adds so much to the magic of childhood.

In my eyes, our little ones grow up way too early and too quickly – I say, let them be kids as long as they can be. Last year, my daughter had someone tell her Santa wasn’t real, nor the Easter Bunny nor the Tooth Fairy. She came home just completely baffled how someone couldn’t believe. She chose to believe, it took no convincing on my part – she wasn’t ready to hear the truth. I do feel that there seems to always be very creative questions coming from my children. Some questions are so deeply thought out that I often throw it back to them asking them what they think the answer is and we often go with what they’ve suggested as the answer, haha.

When you do have that child who questions the magic and can’t quite believe the stories you tell them, that’s okay too. There’s no need to push it once they’re ready to hear the truth. The trick is though, although it’s fine for them to give up on the magic, how do we keep them from ruining the magic for other little ones in their world? I’ve seen some great ideas to help them prevent ruining it for their younger siblings, cousins or friends from school. If you’re facing this predicament this year I hope this spin on Santa can help put you at ease.

Once a child knows the truth you can explain to them that now that they are old enough to understand about Santa, they can become Santa. You can explain that they are in charge of continuing the magic. Keeping the secret hidden so that the younger children get to experience all the magical things they loved. They can help with hiding the Santa gift, wrapping the gift or any other aspects of that tradition in your home. If you happen to have an elf on the shelf, they can help move it and come up with the tricks that they play. This may help them understand the need for secrecy.

However you decide to tackle this growing older problem, good luck. There are many exciting ways to celebrate Christmas with your growing child. Enjoy selecting someone from the Angel Tree in our community and let your child be Santa to someone else. Help them select someone they know and deviously figure out something they would like or need and then sneakily deliver it, another way to act as Santa. In these examples they get to enjoy the giving part of Christmas even more than the receiving.

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