I never grew up believing in Santa. Whether my family was just not organised enough to craft the Santa illusion or whether it was just the cultural norm, growing up in ’80s Macedonia, it was not such a big deal. Christmas was celebrated on 7th January, and the big celebration was on New Year's Eve. Everyone waited until midnight and then opened presents. After inevitably falling asleep before midnight, in the morning my parents would always hand me a 'packet', a bag full of sweets that Santa had supposedly brought me. Whether the big guy was real or not was not really something I gave too much thought, I simply enjoyed the lax boundaries that let me enjoy the sweets at my own pace and convenience. Yet now as a parent, there is overwhelming pressure to succumb to the Santa extravaganza, slowly and steadily creating a web of deception that becomes less sustainable as time goes on. At the same time, it is something I am compelled to do, even amongst growing discontent and pressure in the opposite direction.

The concept of Santa is something easy for the kids to accept. At an age before cynicism and reality have yet to squelch their imagination, it is entirely plausible to believe in all things magic. My offspring spend hours on end every day, making fairy houses and signs in the hope to befriend some of these mythical creatures. Hubby has them believing that they can go to university to become a Snow Queen and have magic snow powers or to fly like Peter Pan. However, Hubby and I are on opposing sides of the Santa debate. While I see it as another magical thing for our offspring to believe in, he is determined to rid our household of Santa related fallacies. This includes no presents from Santa. This is partly because our triplets’ birthday is exactly one month before Christmas so our present inventory is already quite high, and also on the principle of not giving false credit to someone for doing a deed that you yourself have to fund.

In Australia today, the Christmas experience is very different to what I had. Christmas sales start in October. Shopping centres accommodate insomniacs with their ridiculously long trading hours. But most of all, there is Santa overkill. Every shopping centre has a Santa Claus. Every preschool has a Santa visit. Every kids' show in December has a Santa Claus. I was recently struck with the realisation that there is so much Santa around that my five year olds have become Santa complacent. We took them to a ‘Breakfast with Santa’ event at a shopping centre (though I cannot recall why I thought it would be a good idea and which subsequently led me to lose my Christmas event planning privileges). They had never ever seen Mrs Claus before, and they were ecstatic. They didn't even want a photo with Santa, just with her. I am baffled as to what to say to offspring who at five years old, say "He's not the real Santa. It's just a wig." Do I defend the bearded man as THE Santa, even though his waddle is indicative of at least some level of inebriation, and the crossover between Breakfast Santa and Photo Santa is quite visibly two different people?

It is said that Santa was created by Coca Cola, and the concept of Santa teaches kids to be greedy. So inevitably, Santa can get a bad wrap. Keeping in mind that early versions of Santa Claus physically punished children for being bad, perhaps Santa was created by parents. Parents, who at the end of the year have exhausted all their bargaining chips and have run out of fuel in their disciplinary engine, and they just need to get through the end of the year without going insane.  How many times has a parent said something along the lines of "If you don't listen, Santa is not going to bring you that [insert desired present] you wanted." Or even "I'm going to call Santa and tell him that you've been naughty." Because every parent has a direct line to the North Pole.

Last year, while attempting to get my four year old trio ready for their annual Santa photo, I had this conversation.
Me: "Ok girls, let’s get ready, we're going to see Santa Claus today."
Offspring: "Really? Are we going to the North Pole!?"
Me: " No, we're going to the shopping centre."
Offspring: " Well... That can't be Santa."

When my offspring reached Santa, despite their previous reservations about his legitimacy, they confidently informed the tousled polyester beard:
Offspring one: I would like a princess yoyo.
Offspring two: I want a teddy bear.
Offspring three: I want a big carriage that can fit all of us in it and we can sit inside and ride around.

Luckily, I found a North Pole workshop worthy teddy bear and a regular yoyo with a princess sticker on it. In the absence of a reasonably priced life-size carriage for sale, I researched horse-drawn carriage options, but in the end settled for a Little People Cinderella carriage toy. Genius. That is of course, until the following week we found ourselves in a toy shop and offspring saw the exact Cinderella carriage and exclaimed, "Look! I found where Santa bought my present from!" Oh. Another offspring stated "Santa doesn't buy presents, he makes them!" Then ensued an argument about whether Santa bought the carriage or made an exact replica of it in his workshop.

This year, after much investigation, I took the girls to take their photo with a Santa that had a real beard. Much to the disappointment of Hubby who was petitioning the offspring to “ask Santa to bring new shoes for Daddy”, they asked:

Offspring one: I would like a Barbie and the Popstar DVD.
Offspring two: I would like a doll.
Offspring three: I want a rainbow coloured star that has glitter all over it and sparkly bits coming all out of it like this. * spurting hand actions.

After scoring the last DVD of its kind and a doll that looked somewhat hand sewn, I spent a whole afternoon searching for the perfect components of glitter paper and stick on paraphernalia. Together with my best crafting skills, these were going to create the perfect star that would assuredly in no way resemble what my daughter was envisaging when she made her request. However, a couple of days ago, Hubby informed me that while at the park, our daughter had thrown her hat on the ground and refused to pick it up. After several warnings, she had stood firm in her contempt and walked off to the car without it. Even though Hubby had picked up the hat, he told me I was NOT to tell her because she was under the impression that her hat was now lost. Hubby had said “I’ve talked to Santa and told him what you did with your hat. He said that instead of bringing you the present you asked for, the only thing he is going to bring you is a new hat.” There was an element of satisfaction on Hubby’s face as he finished the story, pride at the genius stone that killed both the ‘teaching your child a lesson’ bird as well as the ‘sorting out the present’ bird. I did, however, have to go back to the shops to look for a new hat... while I have a perfectly good hat at home that I am not allowed to use. He should have told her that Santa said he would find her old hat and give that to her as a present. Now there is a lesson.

Here is my personal survival guide in successfully pulling off Operation: Santa -

- Santa only makes presents from wood, paper or fabric. He does NOT make iPads, or Xboxes, or Playstations, or remote control cars you can ride in or any type of electronics. Except for DVDs. He definitely can make DVDs.

- Because Santa has to fit so many toys in his sleigh, presents from Santa are SMALL. And if they could be priced, they would not be expensive. Because the magic is in the fact that Santa made something special for them, not how extravagant the toy is.

- Questions like “Is Santa real?” are responded with “Perhaps.” Or “I don’t know... He might be.” And well... he might be.

- Instead of writing “from Santa”, I ensure presents are packaged differently and plead ignorance at the miraculous appearance of presents which no one takes responsibility for producing and are exactly what offspring asked Santa for.

- All the fake Santas are the real Santa’s messengers.

- When offspring ask how Santa can always see if they are naughty or nice, I explain that he probably does this in much the same way that Mummy has “special eyes” to see what they are doing no matter where they are, or the way that Grandma has a special birdie called Manolis who follows them around all day and watches everything they do and then reports to her at the end of the day whether they have been good or not.

For kids, the best part of Christmas is the excitement. The anticipation of leaving out cookies and a beverage for Santa, waking up in the morning and examining the crumbs and empty beer can. How wonderful must the feeling be that they are so special to be visited by Santa, and be rewarded for being good. Even though my offspring are 95% trouble makers on a good day, they are fundamentally good children. They care for others and look after their loved ones. They give affection and show gratitude. And they insist that they want to use their birthday money to buy new shoes for daddy, because they did not ask Santa for them when he had asked them to.

This year, after decorating the Christmas tree, my offspring decided to call it “The Jesus tree” and proceeded to dance around it singing “here we go round the Jesus tree, the Jesus tree, the Jesus tree...” and asked if they thought Jesus was happy to see them dancing and being happy that he was born. That same day, they decorated their own cookie plates for Santa and placed them under the tree. So, I have no problem with Santa Claus. In fact, it is unfair for people to give Santa such a bad wrap while happily supporting other beings, such as giving their offspring money for teeth from a mythical fairy (who collects them, for some reason). Needless to say, Hubby is also against the tooth fairy.

In the end, it is not Santa but our consumerist culture that drives the shopping centre opening hours. It is us parents that decide what presents to give from Santa, whether to hand toy catalogues to our kids, and ultimately, what to teach children about the importance of giving to others and the true meaning of Christmas. Whether Santa Claus is simply the jolly reindeer driven fat man made famous by Clement Calrke Moore’s “The Night Before Christmas” poem, or if he is the Netherland’s Sinterklaas who arrives in a boat and rides on the rooves of houses with his horse and listens to children signing at their fireplaces, or even Saint Nicholas, the patron Saint of children whose legend of generosity evolved into the story we know, he is exactly what we make of him.

Born in Skopje, Macedonia, Daniela Ifandoudas is a high school teacher and mother of triplet daughters living in Sydney Australia. When not preoccupied with crowd control, chauffeur duties and keeping up with her offspring’s ridiculously busy social schedule, she makes time to write and spend time with her loving husband Peter... mostly strategising over the best way to tackle crowd control, chauffeur duties and offspring’s social schedule.