How to Answer Your Child’s Questions About Santa Claus
by Eric Kaplan
A lot of parents like their children to believe in Santa Claus so they can enjoy the season with a sense of child-like wonder, but also like them to be rational so they can get into college. Here are some answers you can give to questions a skeptical child is likely to ask about SC.
Q: If Santa is real how come I’ve never seen him?
A: There are a lot of things you’ve never seen, including quarks, justice, and Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli. Sometimes what we see depends on who we are. Your dog has never seen a lawyer and your pet fly has never seen a person, because a dog doesn’t have a concept of a lawyer and a fly doesn’t have a concept of a person. But who other than Santa would have given you your own pet fly with two changes of costume and a Fly Beach Habitat complete with tiny see-saw and swings?
Q: But why does he make it so hard? If he wants us to believe in him shouldn’t he let us see him?
A: Maybe. Or maybe we become better people by stretching our capacity to believe in things, even when there’s no proof that they’re real.
Q: But those chimneys? And being everywhere? I’m happy to stretch my capacity to believe, Mom and Dad, but c’mon!
A: You have two eyes, there are two Dakotas, and the helium atom has two electrons. The number two can get to a bunch of places at once, why not Santa? Before you answer, remember the number two has never brought you any gifts and Santa has.
Q: My friend doesn’t believe in Santa Claus. Why is that? Is he an evil heretic? Should I, perhaps, burn him?
A: No. Your friend is doing a very important job for Santa Claus. Santa knows that if every kid you met believed in Santa Claus it would be obvious that he existed, and you wouldn’t get to stretch your capacity for belief (see second answer). So Santa dispatches a special kind of elf called a Mofelzip to the house of some children. The Mofelzip tells these kids that they are Santa’s Smartass and their job is to do their best to convince his friends that Santa is not real. The brawny four-armed elf lives in smartass’s house throughout the Christmas season, sleeping in his bed, using his toilet to dispose of his elf-waste, which looks like snow but smells like cinnamon, and monitoring how well he does his job. On Christmas Day, the Mofelzip gives the child a slice of roast beef for every friend he has convinced that Santa is fake.
Q: How come kids whose parents have money get better gifts from Santa than kids whose parents do not?
A: Now you’re asking a question that would make Santa very happy. If you go find somebody who has less than you and share with them, you get to do something even better than believing in Santa. You get to be Santa.
Eric Kaplan is the author of Does Santa Exist?