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I was at a holiday party the other night when a friend sighed and declared, “Gotta go home and move the elf.”

I couldn’t help but shake my head a little and sigh to myself, admittedly with an air of righteousness, knowing we’d never say that in my home. My husband didn’t understand the reference, so I explained to him what “Elf on a Shelf” was, to the best of my knowledge.

“So, basically they use scare tactics and bribery to get their kids to behave?” he paraphrased. And I nodded, again with a slight air of disbelief.

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Meanwhile, in our home, my husband and I work very hard to encourage our kids simply to be good for – to quote a popular Christmas song – goodness’ sake. The notion of encouraging my kids to be good in order to make Santa’s “nice” list really troubles me. Not only does it completely undermine my authority, but it’s pure extrinsic motivation.

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But how kids think of Santa Claus represents, for me, all that is not Christmas spirited: receiving instead of giving, greed instead of gratefulness, idle wanting instead of active contributing. And encouraging my children to write letters to him or make Christmas lists or be good because he’s watching encourages all the wrong things for me. I want whatever goodness does come out of my children to be for the right reasons. I want them to be people who are simply good and kind and honest, as I try to be (well, most of the time:).

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This year, now that my daughter is of an age where she could truly believe in Santa and be consumed by the magic and thrill of believing, I wasn’t willing to let him come down our chimney.

My friend with the ever-watching elf thinks I am cruel. She thinks it’s truly sad that I have robbed my children of the magic of the holiday. But I don’t see it. My kids still enjoy reading about Santa – as much as they enjoy reading about Harold and his purple crayon or The Cat in the Hat, magical characters who are not actually real but still capture a child’s imagination. My kids will still wake up on Christmas morning to see a sparkling tree with a modest bounty of presents underneath.

The lights will still twinkle and the decorations still shine. No one needs to sit on a shelf or a keep a list for us. The day will be special simply because it’s Christmas – even if Santa skips our house.

- "Behave or Santa wont bring you gifts," is a pretty pathetic thing to say/lesson to teach your kids
- Children being thankful to "santa" for gifts, as opposed to thankful for their parents who may have had to sacrifice to afford those gifts, is unfortunate
- Santa not the only example of this type of nonsense:

The Easter Bunny - "Easter Hare" originally played the role of a judge, evaluating whether children were good or disobedient in behavior at the start of the season of Eastertide.

The Tooth Fairy - Parents tend to view the myth as providing comfort for children in the loss of their tooth. Mothers especially seem to value a child's belief as a sign that their "baby" is still a child and is not "growing up too soon".

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