Santa Science

A Data-Driven Report on Christmas' Best-ish Kept Secret

There is a memo circulating amongst my friends, announcing this is the year to tell our kids about Santa Claus. At every youth sporting event and birthday party, a flock of moms are in the corner, whispering, debating, scheming. I have witnessed all five stages of grief in those corners, acceptance and denial being the most prominent. While many moms are having sweet talks with their children about Santa and adopting a fun, new outlook on Christmas, others are shoving big kids into footie pajamas and continuing their Oscar-worthy monologues on the North Pole’s logistics strategy.

My boys haven’t held my feet to the fire about Santa, so I’m biding my time, researching how I’d like to broach the topic. The experimental group I’m studying consists mostly of 3^rd through 6^th grade parents.

Santa Sit-down Method

“I had the talk with him,” a girlfriend told me recently.

I wrongly assumed she was referring to the birds and the bees.

“Oh my gosh, the sex talk? How’d it go?”

“No,” she said. “The Santa talk.”

I stopped in my tracks.

“Wait, what?” Somehow this seemed more jarring than explaining how babies are made.

Her son had been asking questions for weeks. His suspicion was high, and his guesses were accurate. The time had come. She walked him through the whole thing and answered all his questions. The talk was a success. Now he knows and is basically an adult.

After polling dozens of friends, this Santa Sit-down Method proves to be the most popular. While many parents hypothesized emotional fallouts, disappointment, and/or accusations of deception, those theories were widely disproven. Positive, trauma-free results were recorded, with variables that include hugs, delayed questions in the presence of younger siblings, and a slight chance of tears (mostly from moms).

Child-led Santa Weaning

A few friends claim Child-led Santa Weaning is the ticket. Ironically, these are the same children who learned to walk at 9 months old, never battled a pacifier addiction, and mastered American Sign Language in utero.

“He bum-rushed me when I was walking through the door with groceries,” my mom friend said. “He confessed that he snooped last year and found his gifts in my closet. When Christmas morning came, he connected the dots. Honestly, I was relieved. Santa is exhausting.”

Graphs show that many parents from the child-led group experience an increase in sleep and headspace, as well as a decrease in alcohol consumption and spousal disputes.

Don’t Stop Believin’ Strategy

Another group of friends have an unspoken agreement with their children that Santa’s identity will never be disclosed. They subscribe to the Don’t Stop Believin’ Strategy. The interesting variable in this group is the kids range from 8 to 45 years old. I made the following assessments from their approach.

1. Some kids want to feel like a kid forever, while some parents want to feel like they have little children forever.

2. Some kids are unsure about the correlation between believing and receiving, so they ain’t saying a word.

Santa’s School Snitches

Many parents report that while they haven’t had the talk yet, their kids are getting an earful about Santa at school. This is a gray area, because the children are not asking questions, just sharing rumors. Until the children show substantial doubt, this group of parents is sticking to a script. Responses to the school rumors include but are not limited to:

· Obviously, those kids are on the naughty list and broken inside.

· What is Jimmy’s mommy’s full name and address?

· Play with someone else until next year.

Field Note: I also have friends who have never allowed their children to believe in Santa Claus. For the sake of research, I have classified them as experimental outliers. We love them but have avoided December play dates for years to prevent untimely Santa information dissemination.

Conclusion:

After charting and analyzing my intel, I have concluded that Santa will be status quo at our house this year; no big reveal for us. My husband and I will reconvene on December 26^th to discuss which method we might adopt in the future.

In the meantime, I will continue answering questions about reindeer endurance, explaining why Santa is unlikely to bring a $1,000 Lego set, and making phone calls to Santa’s direct line when my children are unruly.