But atheists, humanists, naturalists, and secularists don't need to boycott Christmas, or declare war against it. Instead, they can simply embrace it as an opportunity to engage and encourage their kids' capacity for freethought, and to universalize the message of a more cosmopolitan, compassionate humanity. There are many reasons to celebrate the season.
My wife and I defaulted into raising our kids with the same myth we’d been raised in (I know, I know), considering it ever-so-harmless and fun. Neither of us had experienced the least trauma as kids when the jig was up... But as our son Connor began to exhibit the incipient inklings of Kringledoubt, it occurred to me that something powerful was going on. I began to see the Santa paradigm as an unmissable opportunity – the ultimate dry run for a developing inquiring mind... With questions of belief, you have three choices: feed the child a confirmation, feed the child a disconfirmation – or teach the child to fish.
I haven't confirmed or disconfirmed anything here, just turned the question around (in the insufferable fashion of a philosopher): "Is Santa real? What do you think 'real' means?" Teaching a child to fish for truth is better than handing her either a dead myth or a cold reality. Eh, Frosty?
Charles Darwin (
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