Christmas season is so much easier when you don't have to compete with a fictional, fat, jolly, magic man. The spirit behind it has value, and we celebrate that, along with other traditions.
My recovery is just to own it, and say that I may not believe anymore, but "I'm proud of you sweety for believing". Kids won't take that as condescending cause the notion of Santa disbelievers is built-in.
I think my kid flat out told their friends at pre-school that Santa Clause died. Which lead to some very interesting conversations. We watched the cartoon film Klaus on Netflix (would recommend) and that's how they internalized it. =)
My eldest actually did that in kindergarten (barnehage) except that he apparently didn't justify it as being my opinion but a simple fact. When my wife went to pick him up one day she was very politely asked to explain to him that this caused some distress to some of the other children. She did that, he understood and kept his opinions on the subject to himself.
> I don't remember ever believing in Santa when I was a kid, but I also didn't grow up in anglo sphere where that question seems quite important the growing up process.
Not Anglosphere, more specifically US I think. I'm 66 and from England, I don't recall any of my childhood friends ever behaving as though they believed in Father Christmas and I'm even more confident that they would not have later claimed to their children that he existed. As far as I can remember I always knew that Christmas presents came from parents and relatives; after all most of the packages had cards on them saying things like 'Love to .. from auntie ..'.
I don't remember ever believing in Santa when I was a kid, but I also didn't grow up in anglo sphere where that question seems quite important the growing up process.