Are you excited about the holidays coming up soon?

I am so excited about the holidays.

I know not everyone out there celebrates Christmas, but there may be some type of holiday you're celebrating soon.

It's fun just to get into the holiday spirit.

Oh, I'm really excited.

Yeah, just to maybe see family a bit more, maybe just work a little less or slow down, take some days off and just relax.

I am super excited.

So this has been tough. Yeah, lots of family time, right?

Yeah, this is what we're getting into today, but we do have a really, really, really important caveat for any of our listeners that happen to be listening today with their children.

What is it, Aubrey?

Yes, so some of you have let us know that you listen with your children, which we love.

That is awesome.

We are going to be talking about Christmas magic and Santa Claus today, and it's a message that you might not want very young children to hear.

So just a heads up, you may not want to listen to this episode with young children.

Yeah, but we have 2,000 plus other episodes.

So if you're in that moment where you think you want to turn it off right now, go back to our other episodes.

So many options for you.

Right, and then come back and listen later without the kids because this is going to be a great episode.

We don't want you to miss it.

Yes.

But we also, not appropriate for little ears.

Exactly, well, let's get into it.

Let's ask the big question, Aubrey.

Can I ask you?

Well, let me ask you because my, well, we'll both answer this.

I'm going to ask you first, Lindsey.

How did you find out that Santa wasn't real?

Yeah, I just remember having a conversation with my mom.

I think I would, maybe I was a little on the older side.

I think usually first children tend to learn later, right?

I think I was about like nine.

I was, you know, and I sort of, you know, started to question,

I started to ask the more pointed questions.

Well, how does this work?

How exactly does he get down the chimney?

And how can he possibly go to all the houses and the whole world?

And my mom started saying things like, well, what do you think?

Like, not in a rude way, kind of more, she didn't want to say it, you know?

Let's talk about it.

But she wanted to kind of facilitate a space for me, but not tell me the true answer.

What about you, Aubrey?

Were you like three?

Sounds like your mom handled it really well.

No, I never,

I have never had a conversation with my parents about Santa not being real.

Like I was high school, college,

Santa was still bringing presents.

And like, it's like at some point I just knew, but we just never had a conversation.

I never asked.

It was like, don't ask, don't tell.

If you believe he will keep bringing you presents.

We just never talked about it.

Wow, that is so interesting.

We all have our own unique experience.

I mean, I know for sure if you're a middle child or a third child, you probably learn earlier usually, but in some cases things aren't talked about in households too, right?

And it depends on the child.

So I'm going to share sort of what's happened to some of my kids.

But first we want to share this amazing question we got that inspired this episode.

Lindsay, can you read this question for us?

All right, here we go.

Absolutely.

And just one more caveat, if any of our listeners have joined in recently before we did our last caveat, if you're listening with a young child, maybe listen to another episode today, all right?

And then come back on your own to listen in.

Here we go.

Hello, everyone.

I'm Mai from Japan.

I enjoy listening to your podcast and the stories of each host every day.

I have a question.

I'm very curious how children in the U.S.

who believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy eventually end up.

I have a nine-year-old daughter who recently asked, does Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy really exist?

It was so adorable to watch my daughter believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, but I honestly don't know how to answer the question.

This is not a question about English, but if you could introduce my question on your podcast, could you tell me your experience or any heartwarming story if you have one?

Oh, that is beautiful.

It's an amazing question.

And it is about English, right?

Because a lot of you are teaching your children to be bilingual or you have immigrated somewhere where your kids are starting to create their own traditions.

You're creating your own family traditions in an English-speaking country.

And you do need to know, how do I say this?

What are the phrases I would use?

What are my kids learning at school?

It's interesting.

There's a lot to think about.

Oh, 100%.

And thank you to Mai for asking this question.

It's a great question.

Before we do get into it,

I want to request for our listeners to hit that follow button, because we're looking at 2025 and we have options.

I know for me, the podcasts that I actually follow are the ones that drop into my queue.

And those are the ones I end up listening to, right?

I don't go searching for others very often.

Same.

Yeah.

So that's the way to make English a habit and to learn the right values, what we think are the right values around English, which is connection, not perfection.

Human connection, okay?

Yes, absolutely.

So hit that follow button, everyone.

We love it.

Okay, so I have been asked this question because I have four children.

And I think I have a good answer.

So I'm excited to share.

I want you guys to stay to the end to hear a couple of different answers because kids are very different.

And each parent knows this.

If you have more than one child, it's going to work differently.

They're going to need maybe a little different answer.

But first, I think it's interesting this isn't just about Christmas, right?

There are a lot of things where parents tell little white lies to their children.

We have Elf on the Shelf, which is supposedly a real elf that goes to Santa.

And then it moves every night.

And this is kind of a little white lie.

And then the tooth fairy, Mai pointed out as well, a lot of parents, the children hide their teeth under the pillow and then it disappears and there's money.

And the tooth fairy has replaced the tooth.

So there are kind of a lot of lies that we tell children, right?

Yeah, Elf on the Shelf, I think must be new.

Because my niece, sorry, my niece does that, or she did.

I think she's past that age by now.

But this must be new because we definitely didn't have-

It's newer.

It comes with a book that came out maybe 10 or 15 years ago.

It's been a little while, but newer than when we were little, right?

And so there's a little stuffed animal elf that you're supposed to bring out or shows up on December 1st.

And then keeps an eye on the kids to make sure they're good, which is kind of creepy.

And then moves every morning is in a different spot.

But our kids have loved looking for the elf every morning to find out where she has ended up.

And it's really hard to remember to move her.

Ours is a little girl, Julia.

It's hilarious.

They love it, but that's the first thing I thought too, creepy, kind of creepy.

And one more job for parents to have to do.

I have to set an alarm in my phone for both the tooth fairy and the Elf on the Shelf to remember these things.

Look at this, yes.

Oh, wow, I love it.

So what do we want our listener, my, and the rest of our listeners to know then?

Do we go ahead and answer this question?

So her actual question was, children who are told these things and who believe these things, like parents telling, how do these kids end up?

So I think the question is kind of like, does this affect a person to have their parents lie to them?

And so I researched that a little bit.

We're going to talk about this a little bit.

What factors should you consider when you are telling these little white lives?

Like what are the possible consequences?

Yeah, it makes me think of, what is it?

Miracle on 34th Street, where, do you remember that movie where the girl was always told that he didn't exist?

And that was just the parents' parenting style.

And then some magical things happened in the movie, right?

Do you remember that?

Yes, yes, vaguely, but yeah, same kind of thing.

And almost every Christmas movie does this really well, where it's like, if people believe, then Christmas magic exists, right?

But it's interesting, at least in the US, most parents do promote the myth of Santa Claus, right?

Most children accept it as real.

You found out at about nine.

My twins are 10 and still believe in Santa Claus, but they are right there where you were.

They're starting to ask questions.

They're starting to hear other kids at school talk about it not being true.

So it's interesting.

Some families never openly talk about whether Santa is real or not, like mine didn't.

And some families tell their children quite early.

So then it becomes tricky because the kids at school, some of them are like, you know, mocking other students for believing.

That's too bad.

And I think especially if, like I said earlier, if you're an oldest child, you probably will believe longer because they want to keep it going for your brother or sister, because generally the siblings can tell each other, and then if you're the younger one, it gets ruined pretty young.

Right, yeah, no, we don't want that.

Yeah.

So we're going to quickly go into a few of the things.

I researched a little bit online.

Just the sort of the things to consider when you're deciding, should I tell my children this is not true?

Like when, can I be, how, you know, what age?

So first is to consider the developmental stage.

And what I found was basically, children are able to distinguish fact from fiction in very early childhood.

And that this is going to be a very personal thing for each child.

If your child has a reason to have trust issues, if they're questioning whether it's real or not, if they're saying, just tell me, kids at school are telling me like, then you're going to want to follow your own instincts, but it might be time to just be honest, like your parents were, Lindsay.

And maybe like your mom did, instead of outright saying, okay, Santa's not real.

Say, what do you think?

She wanted me to come to the conclusion.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

My mom actually was a child psychologist.

So she was a child developmental psychologist.

So maybe that's where that came from.

So give her a little credit for sure.

Yeah, I can see that.

And she probably knew that.

Just number two here is, you want to think about how it could affect a relationship.

So for me and allowing my children to still believe Santa exists, there is no effect to the relationship, right?

It's not something where it's creating this potential loss of trust, right?

We are building trust together.

And it will be, once my kids find out, it will be something that they'll see it as like, oh, you know, mom and dad did this in order to make Christmas magical and fun, rather than like they were trying to deceive us.

Of course, now that is so important for them to come away with the right message, right?

Yeah, it's tricky.

Yeah, and then the impact of the child.

What do we need to know here?

Yeah, so this is where we get, there are a lot of different opinions, both among child psychologists, among parents.

Some will definitely say that like any lying encourages children to be dishonest and think dishonesty is acceptable.

Others will say you can help them see the magic of Christmas as different, as like a way to be creative and just to believe in the impossible, right?

And that that's a net positive.

Yeah, because later in life, some aspects in life do feel magical.

Aspects of reality can feel very magical in life, so maybe this is just warming them up to the magic that does exist in life.

And so if we look at, if we look for it, you know?

Exactly, right?

If you believe that nothing difficult is possible, then your whole life, maybe you won't try things at work or in life that could have led to, you know, great results, right?

Or even just, you know, looking at just a sunset as magical or chalper, like the fact that children are born every day is actually magical, right?