Santa and God.
I decided, without thinking too much about it, to tell my children that Santa was not real. I told them that it was a game that adults liked to play. I told them we would not be playing it in our house. My children asked a lot of questions about this, some of them hilarious, but they never asked me why I did not want to play the game. I explained to them that virtually everyone they would meet would be playing the game and that if there were other children nearby they should assume that those children did not know it was a game. Those children were the true believers, I advised them not to give the game away because the adults wouldn’t like the prank exposed and that eventually the children would discover the truth.
As a family we prayed and read scripture every day. We discussed the wonders of scientific discovery and how it was replacing superstition and prejudice with knowledge and wisdom. How science was showing us that humanity is one entity and that God was unknowable but had sent us Messengers down though the ages to teach us how to live and love one another. And that learning doesn’t end and that they would have to improve the world before they move on to the next. The santa prank, at least for my children was just a curious glitch.