You find your child sobbing by the fireplace hung with Christmas stockings & you run to comfort him, thinking he’s afraid he wasn’t a good boy this year so Santa is going to put coal in his stocking (or bring him only socks and underwear, my favorite threat).

Gently, you tell him you’re sure Santa will bring him something he hopes for, anticipating his angelic smile.

Instead he looks up at you with sadness & accusation in his little face and says,

 Joey told me there’s NO Santa Claus! Is it true?

There it is, the dreaded question you’ve been hoping to put off for years yet. So, now what? Do you tell him Joey is right? Do you tell him Joey is a little bully who made it up to hurt him? If you tell him Joey is wrong, are you lying to your child?

Families who believe in Santa go to great lengths

to protect that belief. As our children approach the questioning age, we resort to all kinds of strategies to prolong the fantasy; separate wrapping paper and tags for Santa presents, eating the cookies to prove Santa was there, planting foot prints in the snow, making noises to mimic hooves on the rooftop, or running outside to investigate strange noises.

Some parents take it so seriously, that they protect their children from other children who try to spoil it. CNN reported an irate mother who confronted the mother of the offending child, claiming that child would not be allowed to play with her child anymore and that this family had destroyed something special for them. Was this an overreaction?

Fran Walfish, child and family psychotherapist and author of “The Self-Aware Parent, says children under the age of 7 are likely to believe what their parents tell them. Between second and fourth grade is the peak of what Walfish refers to as the latency phase of child development, and is the period during which parents can expect the question.

Are you prepared for it? How will you respond?

Paul Hokemeyer, a marriage and family therapist suggests looking at the dilemma from this point of view. It’s an opportunity to teach children about the importance of finding their own voice and truths in the world. “Explain to them that the world is a diverse and large place where people hold different views on the same topic,” he says. “And further explain that what’s important is to believe in what feels true at a particular moment in time and to hold on to it for however long as it feels honest and true.”

Walfish stresses that most importantly for parents, ’tis not the season to feel guilty about the Santa tradition.  “Moms and dads need to relax and cut themselves some slack,” she says. “You are not changing the truth for personal gain or deceit. Santa is part of our folklore. The celebration of Christmas has included Santa Claus for almost all young children. You are passing down the folklore, keeping up the tradition and allowing your child to fully enjoy the magic.”

In our family, we chose to focus on the magic of the holiday.

When my sons questioned the existence of a man named Santa who lived in the North Pole with flying reindeer and elves, we talked about the magic of the season of giving & that Santa represented that. He may not actually be a living man as we think of it, but he lives in our hearts as the magic of the season. Children believe in magic and so do we, if we let ourselves. All things are possible when you allow yourself to see beyond concrete reality. Tying the magic into the act of giving worked for us. We kept Santa alive for many years.

And, incidentally, Santa now brings socks and underwear every year to my struggling college sons & they wait anxiously for them!

So, how will you answer this question, or how have you answered it that might help other parents when they’re faced with it?