Scan any set of Internet headlines this week and odds are that you’ll see something along these lines: Imagine There’s No Santa, No Virginia, There Is No Santa, and Why I Don’t Tell My Kids About Santa. You’ll also see classics like Should You Tell Your Kids About Santa Claus? and When Should You Tell Your Kids About Santa Claus? And if you were online today, you might have seen this: Justin Beiber Never Believed In Santa Clause.

You’d almost think that there was no Santa Claus.

You can find these headlines on Babble too, of course. We’re currently running a salon discussion about ‘the Santa Myth’ at Babble – Santa: Holiday Hero or Horrible Lie – in which most of the discussants are wringing their hands about lying to children about a fat man in a red suit. I just don’t like doing it, they’re saying. I want my kids to trust that I always tell them the truth. They worry about this, of course, because the story of Santa is not true. And if the story of Santa is not true, then telling that story in a manner that does not disclose the story as fiction is, basically, lying.

Which, sure. Of course.