Yeah...I've been thinking about it this morning. Like say for instance when we took our toddler to the black santa last year at the mall and he said 'That's not Santa, Santa is white!'. Yah...that would kinda set off some alarm bells and discomfort...might make me think that his belief in the mythology is problematic. (as an aside, I haven't watched that CNN clip with the white lady complaining about black santas in awhile...goddamn i laughed my ass off when i first seen it)

Also...the 'black pete' thing I assume you're aware of? I would definitely interfere if someone or a cartoon or something like that presented that part of the mythology to my kid.

After some thought...I'd say that the race angle is definitely the most legitimate reason to not participate in the Santa thing...like you said, further entrenching the white goodness/savior thing. At the same time...heroes in a society usually reflect the majority and there isn't necessarily something sinister about that. As long as there are alternatives available (ie black santas, black dolls, black superheroes, black storybooks) then it's not something particularly high on my radar. I would argue we have made significant strides in this area culturally compared to when I was growing up (the 80's). My kids love Will Smith. I don't think there was a Will Smith equivalent 30 years ago. The friend I was referring to earlier will not read ANY storybooks that depict white people which I suppose he could claim he's just trying to combat all the surrounding images....ie they are bound to get their white image quota by their surroundings. I don't know....we believe in having a little bit of everything in our house. We DO monitor things to make sure there's diversity in what we expose them to...but we also try not to interfere in a "No you can't play with that white doll' type of way. I think there's a danger of that type of interference back-firing too. My SO was raised that way...her mom was a black nationalist so she's kinda sensitive about people who she thinks are over-doing it.

I was asking if Legs subscribed to the anti-santa stuff that isn't race-based. There's white people who actively kill the santa myth for their kids for non-racial reasons. Like the OP alluded to....something like 'my kids are gonna know that I work hard to provide these things and I should get the credit for that in their minds'. That's a little silly to me....that we would ruin their fun so that we get the credit. A little over-wrought imo.

There's also the 'I don't lie to my children' which I also think is silly. For one, we SHOULD lie to our kids. I mean...take it to it's logical extreme....'Daddy, why do you lock the bedroom door sometimes?' You get the picture. There's other reasons too...they all seem to be virtue-signalling 'I'm a special snowflake parent' type thing.

All that being said...I don't think it's really deep if someone decides not to do the Santa thing. There's people who think kids are being deprived by those who don't take part and that's ridiculously melodramatic as well.

Apologies to Tiggerific for kinda hijacking a cute kid post. The letter is totally cute and adorable.