Some friends were over for Christmas dinner; the conversation turned to Santa. The husband of the family — I’ll call him Jim — asked whether or not we were going to tell our daughter the truth about Santa at an early age. Jim’s contention was it that the belief in Santa is good for the imagination and that it does no harm.

I’m not sure where I stand. Certainly we create alternative little universes for our children in the spirit of entertainment, and I’m not so sure telling our daughter that Santa has brought this or that present is all that different.

Jim went on to mention the look of astonishment on Christmas morning when the presents are suddenly under the tree and the children run in, excited: “Santa came!”

“Don’t you remember how that felt?” he asked.

“No,” I replied, wondering how much detail I should provide. What would have have said if I continued, “I was about 23 the first time I celebrated Christmas”? With my parents right there, I didn’t want to get into the “I was raised in a cult” conversation as that seems somewhat damning to them. I just left it at “No” and hoped the conversation would go away.

It used to be a common thing: be evasive and hope the other party lost interest. I middle school, high school, even college to some extent, I fell into that pattern.

I hadn’t done that in close to twenty years, though.

It didn’t feel good, but it made me glad anew to be out from under that.