So, we do the Santa thing in our house, of course. I've told my wife that I won't lie to my kids about it, but that I'll also play along. She goes to some lengths to make things 'fun' for the kids, like on St Patrick's day she does some mischief around the house and dies the milk green and leaves behind gold coins and says a leprechaun did it. She does some other stuff like that with the Easter Bunny.
My wife particularly loves Christmas and loves the whole Santa thing. Loves it. She has said that she hopes the kids never figure it out.
So this year, my kindergartner figured out that there wasn't an Easter Bunny. We hadn't pushed that one hard, but she said, "That just doesn't make sense. There is no giant bunny that delivers eggs."
So today, on her birthday while her and I are eating some cake, she says, "Santa Claus isn't real is he?"
Just like that a 6yo pins me between her and my wife.
I sit there for a minute and say, "That is a weird thing to ask, why would you think that?" She says, "Because the Easter Bunny isn't real, and so that probably means that he isn't real too." So I sit there for a second again and then say, "So who brought you those presents?" "You did." "And who ate the cookies and drank the milk?" "You did." "Won't you be sad if Santa doesn't exist?" "No, its okay, I don't care..."
So I said, "You are going to have to think about that yourself and figure it out." That is the extent I can go to misleading my kids, which frankly was a lot further than I wanted to go. My wife would be devastated to know that part is over for her. I personally think it is fine, but have any of you had your kids figure it out that early? At the very least I need to make sure she doesn't out it to other kids.
My older son figured it out pretty early as well. He wondered why we would make up stories like that. We told him that it was for fun, but also a way so that we could help out other people too, without them feeling bad, that Santa Claus was a personification of an idea of giving gifts anonymously to others. He was cool with that as well.
Maybe I just need to leave our kids out of that and trick my wife into believing he is real.