It's that time of year when the world falls in love, and every parent takes their child to the local mall to see Santa Claus, the most ridiculous myth ever inflicted on a child's psyche. Instead of telling your child a lie about Santa for the first ten years of their life, which you will ultimately and quite suddenly have to renege, why not tell your child the real story of Saint Nicholas, which is far more powerful and actually the truth?

I know what you're thinking: I'm a monster. I actually told all of my children from a very young age Santa was not real and their friends and family purchase gifts for them for Christmas. The world did not end.

Not only that, but their father and I told them the myth of Santa Claus was based on a real person who is far more inspiring than a fat guy in a red suit.

National Geographic sheds some light on the true origins of how St. Nicholas became Santa Claus: “The original saint was a Greek born in the late third century, around 280 A.D. He became bishop of Myra, a small Roman town in modern Turkey. Nicholas was neither fat nor jolly but developed a reputation as a fiery, wiry, and defiant defender of church doctrine during the Great Persecution in 303, when Bibles were burned and priests made to renounce Christianity or face execution.”

Later, he became known as the patron saint of children because of the stories about him giving gold to people in need, particularly the time when he gave money to an indebted father, for his three daughters’ dowries. The man, as legend, spread throughout Europe, especially taking hold in Germany, Russia, and Scandinavia. When people began to flock to America, kids and families from Norway ”brought Sinterklaas with them to New World colonies.”

An anonymous Greek wrote in the 10th century that:



... the West as well as the East acclaims and glorifies him. Wherever there are people, in the country and the town, in the villages, in the isles, in the furthest parts of the earth, his name is revered and churches are built in his honor. Images of him are set up, panegyrics preached and festivals celebrated. All Christians, young and old, men and women, boys and girls, reverence his memory and call upon his protection. And his favors, which know no limit of time and continue from age to age, are poured out over all the earth; the Scythians know them, as do the Indians and the barbarians, the Africans as well as the Italians.



The point is that even though St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children, eventually morphed into the legend of a magical man who brings gifts to children all over the world, this stemmed from the reality that Saint Nicholas was a Christian with deep convictions who was generous with what he had.

While the idea that a mythical man who travels the world in one night via reindeer is warm and fuzzy because it's fantastical and impossible, it's untrue. It's so untrue that eventually every parent or teacher or loved one has to either sit the believing child down and tell them one fateful day that this myth is not actually reality or, worse, they actually have to console them, because someone else has informed them of the truth already.

Of course, Santa Claus is fun. Parents want their children to have fun at Christmas time. We still have fun too. Now, my children joke among themselves about who is playing Santa even though they don't believe in him. The youngest child refers to the whole concept as simply "fake Santa." (Although they have been warned not to tell other children so as not to ruin it for them.)

My children want to be generous at Christmas time, hopefully not because of a man with a white beard, but because generosity, specifically the generosity of Saint Nicholas, is rooted in Christian tradition. True generosity involves sacrifice and care for others just as he exemplified. I would much rather teach my children character traits that will last them a lifetime than tell them a lie for the sake of Western materialism, and that will only make them distrust the person who perpetuated it.

Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.