Have you ever seen the show Clean Sweep? I don’t even know if they are making new episodes or not but every time I’ve seen it I am reminded again and again of how the small incremental choices in life quickly get out of hand leaving you and your loved ones with a huge mess to clean up.

For the record I had a wonderful childhood. I grew up in a loving home with my parents and sister where we participated in a wonderful version of the American dream. So anything I say in this post from this point on doesn’t come from a poor experience from my past or some cynicism that was thrust upon me at an early age. No, this is just a random question about the small incremental choices that we make.

My wife and I have been married for five wonderful years. If all goes according to plan we are looking to add to our little family sometime within the next 12-18 months. (We’ll see.) Due to this fact I have been thinking a lot about how I am going to raise my little boy (Hewson) or girl (Allison). I’ve been assessing my parental philosophy, if you will, and have come to at least one conclusion that really bothers my wife, my parents, my in-laws, and the friends that I have discussed this conclusion with.

Here it goes:

I do not want to lie to my child. Thus, I do not want to tell my kid(s) about Santa Claus. I think that the whole idea about Santa does more harm than good.

Who says I have to tell my kid about Santa? My wife and my mom say that I have to but beyond that? No one. Someone somewhere made the choice to push Santa on us and I, personally, resent it.

I don’t believe that Santa is evil and I’m not anti-holidays or anything like that. I just think that we miss a great opportunity every year to teach our kids about the joys of giving and receiving.

If there were no Santa, what would you really have missed out on? Think about it. You would have missed out on:

$20 dollar mall photos
Writing a wish list to the North Pole
Finding out that your parents have lied to you all those years
The haughty pride of telling some kid that Santa isn’t real

That’s it. End of story.

But think about what you can gain by leaving Santa out of the equation.

No tricks or secrets about who the gifts come from.
An open dialogue with your kids about giving.
Giving your kids a early start in understanding about sacrifice.
Your kids can see how you sacrificed something for them.
Watching your kids and family members connect without the help of some 1000 year old sprite with a red cap.

The list is endless.

Now, I haven’t quite figured out how to not make my kid the “weird kid that hates Santa.” Nor have I come up with a plan on how to put out angry parent fires when my kid spills the beans to his entire k-4 class about the Santa reality. One step at a time.

I just don’t feel comfortable lying to my children. Once you choose the Santa route you can’t look back. If it is ok for you to lie to them about Santa then it’s ok for them to lie too.

Imagine being truly honest with your kids. Instead of using Santa as a cop-out- “Oh, I guess Santa forgot” or “Santa must have been too busy”- you can bite the bullet and say, “It was sold out” or “We couldn’t afford it this year.” Your kid isn’t going to freak out because… their love for you isn’t based on gifts! You are their parent and if you get wrapped up in the rat race of “tickle me elmo” and whatever Christmas toy is hot this year than you will have a harder time teaching your kid not to get wrapped up in the madness later on.

Our whole idea of Santa is an emotional one. Whenever someone on Clean Sweep refuses to give up some dirty sock puppet with one eye and moth damage that was given to them by their great-grandfather the host will remind them that they aren’t giving up the memories, they’re giving up the item to make room for some added memories.

Santa is the dirty sock puppet with one eye and moth damage that was given to us by our great-great-grandfathers. Getting rid of him won’t mess up your holidays.

I guess all I’m saying is that I just want to be a different parent.

Now, use the comments below to tell me that I’ve lost my mind.