I told my 7-year-old the Christmas secret and loved her reply
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‘Santa Claus isn’t real?’ My seven-year-old, Ada, glared at me, mouth agape. ‘But you emailed him last year and he sent you money to get presents,’ she added. ‘Was that a lie?’. I swallowed hard. This conversation, which took place just a few months ago, wasn’t as straightforward as I had anticipated.
![[Jen Barton Packer - I tell my kids Santa isn't real]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_233762063-20e8-e1734623679719.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Truth be told, I had assumed she had got the hint about Father Christmas, the Easter Bunny, and the like after a Tooth Fairy incident: she’d woken up one morning to no coins then caught me as I’d tried to surreptitiously slip money under her pillows while pretending to fluff them.
![[Jen Barton Packer - I tell my kids Santa isn't real]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_233762061-0974-e1734623819775.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
I turned to Ada (who is the youngest of my four kids, aged seven to 14), nodding apologetically. ‘It’s time you knew,’ I said, then confessed: ‘Mummy and Daddy are Santa Claus.’. Digesting this disclosure, Ada seemed to cycle through a range of emotions from shock to sadness, until finally, a large smile crossed her face.
![[Jen Barton Packer - I tell my kids Santa isn't real]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_233762134-103f-e1734624025239.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
She threw her arms around my neck and whispered, ‘Thank you’. This disclosure set the tone for a confessional evening, with my kids asking me all sorts of questions about my Christmases as a child. I told them that my single mother had immigrated from the former-USSR to New York City and used to shower me with presents.
![[Jen Barton Packer - I tell my kids Santa isn't real]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_233762057-b129-e1734624114490.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
She didn’t believe some random pensioner in a red suit should get the credit, so would sign her cards along the lines of: ‘I hope you enjoy these handpicked Christmas gifts I bought you with my blood, sweat and tears’. As a child, her candour could be overbearing but it never bothered me much that she was honest about Santa. Most of my friends celebrated Hanukkah instead of Christmas anyway.
![[Jennifer Barton: Like Paloma Faith, I neglected my vagina as a young woman]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/SEI_207576228-1f96-e1734632070944.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
