Never Too Old for the Magic of St. Nick

It was an offhand remark at a school holiday assembly, before an audience of junior high pseudo-sophisticates at Campbell Hall in Studio City. So Karen Blackwell wasn’t prepared for the collective gasp that greeted her news:

“Since we all know there’s no Santa Claus . . . “

She never got beyond that opening line. A flurry of whispered protests arose and spread on a wave of disbelief, the din growing so loud, Blackwell had to retreat for the moment from the microphone.

And when she saw the pained look on some of their faces, “I knew I had messed up,” she said. “Big time.”

*

I hope my children aren’t reading this column. And if they are, I hope they realize that I am merely passing along the observations of others; that nothing herein should be taken to mean that I, myself, do not believe in Santa Claus.

Because at this time of year, Santa Claus reigns in our family. Never mind that my children--at 9, 10 and 14--live the rest of their lives well outside the realm of fantasy.

Still, they cannot get through Christmas Eve without scribbling gift lists to pin to their stockings, leaving milk and cookies near the fireplace, and lying in bed wide awake for hours, listening for hooves and the bells of a sleigh.

Their steadfast attachment to the big, white-bearded fellow ought to worry me, I have been led to believe.

“Belief in Santa after the age of 8 . . . can be detrimental to a child’s social development,” warned psychologist Robert Butterworth two years ago, in an article I clipped from these very pages.

According to his review of psychological research, only 25% of 8-year-olds believe in Santa, while an additional 55% are in a “transitional period in which they are undecided on whether he exists.” Or, in other words, they are hedging their bets, lest they wind up giftless.

Those statistics, he says, put children who do believe “at risk of being ostracized and teased by . . . their peers.

“When a child’s fantasies collide with the beliefs of his or her peers, those fantasies can lead to conflict, confusion and anger” and a sense of betrayal by their parents, he says.

And while I’m no expert, my own informal research shows that holding fast to a belief in Santa Claus leads only to more Christmas bounty than Mom and Dad alone would ever provide. It’s little wonder, I figure, why they still believe. . . .

I side with other therapists, such as Calabasas counselor Barbara Freedman, who writes a family advice column for her local newspaper.

There is no harm, she says, in indulging children’s Christmas beliefs.

“Kids--and grown-ups, for that matter--need that kind of magic in their world. It’s more the spirit of Santa Claus that we get attached to . . . the wonder, the magic, the spirit of giving. It’s not just a fat guy in a red suit with a beard.”

Freedman is Jewish, so she has never faced the Santa dilemma with her three sons.

“With us,” she said, “it was the tooth fairy that they seemed to hold on to forever,” even after they discovered their missing teeth stashed in an envelope in Mommy’s room.

“Whether it’s the tooth fairy or the Easter bunny or Santa Claus,” she says, “I think they’re important parts of what become good family rituals.

“Children need to have certain expectations at Christmastime. . . . The house will be decorated in a certain way, the stockings hung on the mantle, milk and cookies left out for Santa. Those rituals become a part of what defines a family for kids.”

Even teenagers “can have an attachment to their association with Santa that makes them reluctant to let go,” she says. “Sure, they want to be mature and grown-up. But deep down, they like the feeling.”

And Freedman has never seen a child harmed by an innocent belief in Santa Claus . . . even one that persists beyond reason.

“They all seem to grow out of it fast enough,” she says. “You don’t have to make some big announcement; there just comes a point when they stop believing on their own, when they just know.

“And I don’t think we grow into ax murderers because our parents let us believe in Santa too long.”

*

I don’t know what Butterworth’s statistics would say, but I can’t imagine that too many of my daughter’s fifth-grade friends share her belief in Santa Claus.

I listen, with a mixture of dread and admiration, as she endures their teasing, unmoved:

How could a man as large as Santa possibly squeeze through the tiny pipe at the bottom of your chimney? they ask her.

She tries to get her mind around that notion, summoning up all she has just learned in science class, about matter contracting when it is cold.

“Maybe his molecules are moving more slowly than ours,” she offers. You know, the frigid North Pole weather and all. “So he’s able to shrink and get really small.”

I smile, not just at the image she’s created, but at her marriage of science and fantasy. And when she looks to me for confirmation, I give her a thumbs up. And she smiles back at me.

And our family heads into another Christmas season, holding tight together to the magic of our dreams.

Sandy Banks’ column is published on Sundays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.