He asks: “I am looking for inspiration in how I can approach this topic with my children when the time approaches. I hope that these answers will help bring clarity and benefit to others in parallel. I know this may seem silly to you but it is important to me. I’m taking a leap of faith reaching out to you on this subject but I feel it will be most beneficial for all and a surprise for many others. Integrity is important to me and I don’t want to mislead my children or promote falsehoods.” What can we tell him?

You are circling around a profound idea and a wonderful opportunity overlooked, routinely, by the secular world. The idea of Santa Claus and the ritual of having a special day when Santa Claus pays a visit in the night and leaves presents, especially for those who are kind and helpful to others and meet their obligations as part of a family, is indeed a powerful metaphor for a loving God. A God who watches over all creatures everywhere, especially human beings, and who can bring wonderful and joyous benefits, or ignore them if they misbehave and are out of alignment in some way. This is akin to the Law of Karma that oversees everything in an energetic assessment of right and wrong, good and bad, favorable and unfavorable, and so on, and is our way of answering the needs of all as a foundational construct. We put you in charge of your lives, giving you free agency and free will. It is you who reckon with the Law of Karma and its oversight function. That, too, is like a Santa Clause who can bestow gifts or leave a lump of coal in your stocking, so to speak, if you are less deserving because of your own for choices and have made a negative impact on the world in some way or another. So we would say the perversion to promote the idea of Santa Claus as a kind of cultural substitute for the divine, to dilute awareness and perceived need for partnership with us, can be turned around and used constructively by caring parents to encourage their children to see the reality that good things are rewarded and bad things not rewarded. That is an important foundational life lesson. So the idea, an example of Santa Claus in action, can be re-explained and expanded on to prepare children and provide them a springboard for wanting to believe in divine justice, so they look forward to good things happening by being nice, fitting in, and contributing to the workings of a family. Doing this as children prepares them for a life of being a good citizen and a contributor to society. There is nothing wrong with encouraging good behavior with a reward. Making the act of loving kindness and its rewards demonstrably real through belief in Santa Claus in the young, can be parlayed into lifelong belief in the divine with some careful thought and stewardship. As a loving parent, that would be the greatest benefit of the Santa Claus story.