Waiting for grandkids to pop the question: ‘Is Santa Claus real?’

I have survived another Christmas without being confronted with questions about the existence of Santa Claus.

With nine grandchildren, I live in mortal fear that one of the younger believers will ask with wide-eyed innocence, “Grandpop, my friend told me there is no Santa Claus; is that true?”

The simple way around this is to vehemently deny the friend’s hard-hearted revelation, but I have made a promise: Never lie to my grandchildren.

“You’re not really lying,” says my wife, Marie, but I disagree. “But it’s a lie for a good cause,” she counters.

Teaching a course in communication ethics for SUNY Oswego, I am constantly prodding my students to think about lying as unethical behavior. We have frequently discussed whether the so-called “little white lies” should be in a different category.

For example, do you tell your wife the truth — that the new dress she just bought makes her look dumpy — or do you avoid confrontation and, perhaps, the silent treatment that will likely follow, and lie for a good cause?

If my 8-year-old granddaughter, Andrea, confronts me with the dreaded Santa Claus question, I probably will refer her to her parents. Let them be the bearers of bad news or let them get off the hook as best they can.

I admit to being ultra-sensitive to this issue because of the hare-brained, unthinking sin I committed when I was 10. I had stopped believing in Santa Claus a year earlier when I questioned the improbability that one man could visit every house in the world during one night’s hours of darkness — with flying reindeer no less.

When I approached my mother with my suspicions, she at first tried to lead me in a different direction. When it became apparent I was not going to be dissuaded to drop the subject, she finally admitted that it was she and pop who provided the Christmas Day goodies. She quickly added, however, that while the spirit of Christmas was not an actual real live person, it was a strong force in the lives of all of us.

Now armed with the truth, I was prepared to confront the believers with my newly acquired knowledge and debunk this whole Santa Claus scam. The first opportunity came when we were visiting my mother’s friend in Bethlehem, Pa. The friend’s 7-year-old granddaughter was there, too.

We were playing a game when the topic of Santa came up. She was going on about what she wanted Santa to bring her for Christmas. I told her straight out: “You’re a fool; there is no Santa Claus.”

I saw a look come over her face that was not unlike the terror one experiences when learning of the loss of a loved one or a pet. Seconds later, she screamed and began sobbing uncontrollably. Her mother and my mother ran to find out what had happened. She told them what I had said.

My mother flashed me a look which, translated, meant, “You’re in big trouble when we get home, mister.” The girl’s mother tried as best she could to undo the damage.

My mother did punish me when we got home. I was thoroughly confused: I was being punished for telling the truth. Where’s the fairness? Didn’t mom always admonish me: Never lie?

My mother tried to explain that I had no business to be the one to break such crushing news to a 7-year-old believer. The girl’s mother reported several days later that her daughter had had recurring nightmares about my disclosure and she, too, was really angry with my insensitivity.

Chastened by this long-ago episode, I now want to make sure I don’t compound my error by mishandling a direct question from one of my grandkids.

I have rehearsed several responses just in case one of grandkids ambushes me with the question. One of my favorites is a quote from the famous “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” response to a letter from 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon to the editor of the New York Sun in 1897: “He exists as certainly as love, generosity and devotion exist,” the editor had written.

My 45-year-old son recently reminded me of something I had forgotten. When he approached me with his skepticism of Santa Claus, I told him Kris Kringle had been a real person, and even if the toys were delivered by loved ones, the spirit of Christmas walks the face of the earth, and that is the really important message.

I keep reminding myself, however, that all I want for Christmas next December is to be spared the question in the first place. That’s probably why when these grandkids are around and the topic of Christmas and Santa come up, I quickly excuse myself and leave the room.

Bruce Frassinelli is the former publisher and editor of The Palladium-Times in Oswego and an online adjunct instructor for SUNY Oswego. You may write to him at bfrassinelli@ptd.net.