You're entirely right Rebecca! It's just that I wouldn't insist to my children that the books I read at bedtime are true, if they said 'that's not real is it mum?' I'd say nope, but what a great story!

Kids aren't toooo dumb, they can tell reality from fantasy, and are very good at suspending belief (what movies require us to do) - that's what pretend play is! So I don't think that I need to convince my kids of the reality of Santa for them to participate and pretend and still have a really great time with it. Does that make sense?