One day it will happen. The day you’ve been dreading. The day your child asks you if Santa is real.

At first you can fend this off by telling them Santa doesn’t bring presents to children that don’t believe in him. That’ll work for a year. Or maybe two. But while you can keep the magic alive at home, the rumours in the playground, the whispers amongst their friends, will have them begging you to tell them the truth.

It’s a real watershed moment. Once you confirm Santa isn’t in fact real, they’ll start questioning everything else. The Easter Bunny? The Tooth Fairy? Oh where do the lies end. And once you’ve come clean, how do you stop them spoiling the magic for their younger siblings?

Keeping the Magic Alive

In need for a solution, a friend passed this story on to me. A story that swaps one kind of magic for another that is much more believable.

“Santa”, she said, “was real. He lived a long, long time ago. And yes, he did indeed give presents to the children at Christmas. But Santa got old. So before he died he asked parents around the world to carry on his good work, and to keep the magic alive .”

“Xmas lights DC” by Jonathan McIntosh – Own work. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Xmas_lights_DC.JPG#/media/File:Xmas_lights_DC.JPG

“Tell your child this story” she advised “and let them know that they are now grown up enough to take the pledge to keep the magic of Santa alive for the little kids. And that one day, when they grow up and have children of their own, they can continue the work that Santa started and play their own part in keeping his magic alive.”

Why? Because everyone needs a little magic in their lives. And as Roald Dahl said “those who don’t believe in magic, will never find it”.