Instead ? Who said anything about instead ? I learned about Santa . I also DEVOURED books on History , on politics , on real things . I even got my degrees in them . At worst , Santa was completely neutral . It no more impeded my learning of history than did my love of fantasy books . Would you also oppose children being read Lord of the Rings rather than a book on the history of Rome ? Children can handle experiencing more than one thing . Santa is a benign , temporary belief . I seriously doubt that any child would have had a dramatically better life if Santa had simply been removed from it . It ' s just not a significant enough part of life to have such an effect . <| sep |> Your friend is just being a brat because she doesn ' t want to babysit over a holiday and miss a good party . It has nothing to do with you . She is just annoyed that she chose this for herself and now she can ' t have fun like she wanted because she has to be responsible for a kid . It ' s easier for her to blame you for cramping her style , when she is the one who agreed to babysit in the first place .