Santa is real. Not in the ways we pretend. In ways that would obliterate all of our ‘traditional’ pretenses. The representation is the skeleton of the reality.

But this is a mystery, and is far beyond the understandings of the adults. And by the time the children have a story, it’s partly beyond them as well.

So the idea of relieving our modern children of the pretense of Santa is confused. We should, instead, deliver the origins of those pretenses to their… and our… direct experience.