This past Wednesday, my daughter had a question posed to her for the first time. Is Santa going to visit you? For our family, no, he isn’t.

I realize many people make that decision based on the feeling that they are lying to their children. Others want to minimize the materialistic overtones of the season. Still others want to acknowledge the fact that Christmas is supposed to celebrate Christ’s birth. None of these are the real reason why we have chosen not to tell our children that Santa is coming to visit.

The truth is that neither my husband nor I grew up with presents from Santa. Our parents didn’t tell us that he was coming to visit, and we were okay with that. We don’t feel that we have lost a magical part of our childhood, so we see no reason to make it part of our children’s.

Of course, we also want to make Christ the focus of Christmas, but we both grew up knowing the story of St. Nicholas as well as the myth of Santa Claus. Some of my favorite Christmas memories as a young girl are of watching Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and Santa Claus is Coming to Town, not to mention The Santa Clause and Elf. How on earth can we celebrate the myth of Santa Claus while also making sure that our kids understand it is a myth?

I think it’s important to separate fantasy from reality for kids. My parents never sat down and explained it to me, but any time that it came up, there was a reminder of the truth versus the myth. While I did spend my third-grade Christmas trying to see if Santa did come to our house, I never had a reason to believe that he did either before or since. In many ways, it’s similar to teaching children the Greek and Roman myths or telling them a fairy tale. While some kids have a difficult time separating fiction from truth, I believe most kids can separate the fantasy from reality, especially if it’s constantly reinforced for them.

Now, that doesn’t mean telling your kids anything else about Santa is wrong. Every family is different, and some kids can handle knowing the truth early on while others can’t. In fact, I have a friend who is planning on telling her kids that Santa does exist, so I’m going to do my best to teach my kids not to ruin Christmas for their friends who do believe in him. That magic is important to many parents, and just because my children are told differently doesn’t mean that they should tell their friends the truth. No one wins when that happens. Then again, just because we don’t celebrate a yearly visit from Santa doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy the stories about him.

What do you teach your kids about Santa? How do you keep the magic alive for them every year?