With our 7yo, we never pretended that Santa was real. We just told the truth.
People told us that we'd regret that decision. They told us that our kid wouldn't get as much joy or magic.
I've never regretted it.
He is so appreciative of the gifts. He shows us more love over the gifts than I did to my parents who did the Santa thing. He is joyous and experiences magic.
This year he got in on the fun. He got my wife & I to buy each other the exact same gift. We had no idea and he loved it.
@bryanhansel
When our kids were little and they kinda started to figure it out on their own, we told them that yes, there was in fact no Santa.
We told them how St Nicholas kind of turned into what we now know as Santa and the spirit of giving. And so the Santa's that we see nowadays are kinda of like deputies of sorts. They decided to take on the role of deputy Santa after that.
I think it worked for us.
@bryanhansel I don't think many children really believe in Santa anyway. Kids grow up reading fairy tales, so they KNOW what fiction is, and what it sounds like. They'll happily play pretend, but I think genuine belief in Santa would be a rare, rare thing.
Some evidence for this:
1) Kids will write letters to Santa if prompted...then beg their parents for the items on their list. They know who's buying.
2) Kids who ARE taught about Santa attend school with kids who aren't. They talk.
@packbawky have you been around many kids?
Kids who believe in Santa believe in Santa.
Evidence:
1) My kid's friends literally believing in Santa.
2) Memories (bad ones from being one of the last kids to figure it out). Remembering even when kids in my class were talking that I didn't believe my parents would lie about it.
@bryanhansel I have! I used to work in childcare. But the fact that I haven't met any kids who believe in Santa doesn't invalidate your experiences. There could be a lot of variation in belief vs. non-belief based on culture, location, social class, and so on.
I'd have had a hard time taking Santa as fact growing up, as the entire Christian religion was presented to me as mythology. Santa was part of that, so of course he wasn't real. Might be different for Christian kids.
@packbawky If you are interested, you could read this research paper. It has 85% of American 4yos believing in Santa, and it declines from there to 25% at 8.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1939-0025.1978.tb02566.x
@bryanhansel Thanks for the link! I'll read it in the morning, as it's late.
I didn't grow up in the USA, so it's likely I had a pretty different experience of the Christmas season and the stories surrounding it than an American kid would get. 85% feels like a REALLY high number, as only around 60% of Americans are Christian, but I'm definitely willing to believe the number is higher than I thought.
@packbawky I think a significant number of people who aren't Christian give gifts to their kids at the holidays. I personally know a few including myself. PEW puts it at 81% of non-Christian Americans celebrate it.
Nine-in-ten Americans say they celebrate Christmas, and three-quarters say they believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. But only about half see Christmas mostly as a religious holiday, while one-third view it as more of a cultural holiday.
@bryanhansel I don't think I ever believed in Santa, but the year my grandmother died, my mother bought presents from Grandfather for me (and my brother). They were labeled as from Santa. One of mine was The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook.
Every year, I get a cookbook from Santa. 30 years since my grandfather died, my mum still gets me a cookbook from Santa. I have no idea how many I have. Several dozen.
This year it was a cookbook of savory breads. 
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