Instagram | @kristenanniebell

Kristen Bell And Dax Shepard Took The Risk And Told Their Kids Santa Isn't Real

Updated September 7, 2021

Even though kids aren't in my near future, I've always wondered how I would address the Santa question.

On one hand, encouraging my hypothetical kids to believe in Santa when I definitely don't feels misleading. And will it affect their trust in me when they finally learn there's no Santa?

But on the other hand, will revealing that Santa doesn't exist early on make the holidays feel less magical for them than they do for other kids? I don't want to take that away from them either.

I still have time to come to a decision on this, but Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell's kids have reached the age where they start to ask questions. So, this is what the couple decided to do.

Dax has a fundamental rule for how he parents his children.

Instagram | @kristenanniebell

As he told Us Magazine, that rule is to never lie to them no matter how challenging it can get.

And one of those challenges arose when the topic of Santa's existence came up. As Dax acknowledged, "This is going to be very controversial."

By this point, both of Kristen and Dax's daughters had already sat on Santa's lap and neither of them were impressed by this experience.

Reddit | elyl

As Kristen told Today, "It was the obligatory picture where both girls were crying. One girl was hysterically crying and the other one was sort of giving him the stinkeye."

Kristen, personally, had no plans to pass on the Santa legend as we heard it growing up.

Instagram | @kristenanniebell

As she put it, "We have to tell our kid that one night a year breaking and entering is OK and that a dude in a jumpsuit is going to come down the chimney and is going to rifle through our stuff, but it’s OK because he’s going to leave us gifts? That’s a crazy story to tell your child."

So when their daughter, Lincoln, started puzzling over all the things that didn't make sense about Santa, Dax and Kristen decided to come clean.

Instagram | @kristenanniebell

As Dax told Us, "I'm like, 'you know what? This is just a fun thing we pretend while it's Christmas.'"

Basically, they kept their promise not to lie to their kids while also trying to keep the spirit of fun alive.

Instagram | @kristenanniebell

It's certainly a better way to approach it than that one kid on the playground who always rolled their eyes and called us babies for believing that anyone besides our parents deliver our Christmas presents.

But how did the kids take it?

If anything, they seem to like Santa even more now than when they thought he could be real.

Reddit | pinky163

According to Dax, even though they know he doesn't exist, they love talking about him and watching movies about him.

I suppose it's not like we have to actually think Deadpool exists to find him funny or relatable. That's taking a load off the mind.

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