Like Tony Blair and God, Santa was not something my parents "did". There was plenty of festive spirit otherwise, turkeys and stockings etc, just not the big guy.
Nor were my siblings and I disabused of the notion in some shocking scales-from-the-eyes revelation. It was just never on the cards in the first place. Presents came from people; Father Christmas was a silly story. We did not suffer a lack of tidings or joy as a result.
"I never ever told you it was true," my mother confirms. "My parents never ever told me it was true. All my extended family were never told it was true. It's like telling children Cinderella is true." My father's family took a similar line.
This clear policy would have spared the Year Six children of Lee-on-the-Solent Junior School, Hampshire from the life-ruining trauma they apparently suffered when the Rev Dr Paul Chamberlain recently came to address them about the Nativity.
"You're all Year Six, now let's be real, Santa isn't real", Chamberlain, of nearby St Faith's church, reportedly told the children. For good measure, he added that it was their parents who bought their presents - and their parents, rather than a peckish St Nick, who ate the cookies left out on Christmas Eve.
His lesson allegedly left children in "floods of tears". Furious parents told The Times he had "ruined" Christmas.
"I don't know how it can be undone, but I think it's absolutely disgusting," said one anonymous mother. "I don't want him anywhere near my daughter. I hope he never comes into the school again. I think he should stop doing what he's doing.
"It's been difficult, really difficult because she's a very bright little girl," she added. "So we're just going to try and just push as much magic into this as we can."
Another parent said that luckily her daughter had enough faith in Santa that she wasn't persuaded by the reverend's rival version.
"Lots of children started crying in class. Mine was upset but she still believes [in Santa] so I'm quite lucky she's still not believing [Chamberlain] and she thinks he's lost the plot. I think it's wrong, but a lot of parents have had to confess to their child."
The vicar apologised. "Paul has accepted that this was an error of judgment and he should not have done so," said a spokesman from the Diocese of Portsmouth. "He apologised unreservedly to the school, to the parents and to the children, and the headteacher immediately wrote to all parents to explain this.
"The school and diocese have worked together to address this issue, and the headteacher has now written to parents a second time, sending them Paul's apology."
Pity the poor Reverend Doctor, who thought he was doing the children a favour by engaging with them as intelligent young people. He had not counted on their parents, who have evidently indoctrinated their children so thoroughly in the gospel of Santa that they have kept their faith far beyond the point where most children would have worked things out for themselves, or - more likely - been told by a mischievous older sibling. At the weekend I overheard a mother in Crouch End observing to her suspicious child that the rather listless Santa in front of them must have travelled very fast to get there from London Zoo, where they had seen Santa half an hour ago. John Stuart Mill had written a history of Roman Law by 11. If any of my children get to Year Six still believing in Father Christmas, I will have other complaints with the school.
For the incoming US President Donald Trump, 10 or 11 is positively geriatric to still be believing in Santa. In December 2018, during his first term, Trump took calls from children asking where Santa was. Speaking to one child, called Collman, Trump said: "Are you still a believer in Santa? [...] Because at 7, it's marginal, right?"
Writer Andrew Watts published a piece for the most recent Spectator about his experiences attending a Santa school.
"I delivered presents in age order," he says. "And I could see the belief dying out. You start getting questions in about Year Four, but they're not hostile questions. It's more like being examined by your own barrister. By Year Six [the questions] are more aggressive, but the way I dealt with it was to say 'magic dust' to everything. By Year Six it's embarrassing if you still believe."
It was Chamberlain's bad luck to stumble into a den of Santa hardliners. Christmas is trickier than ever for the Christian clergy, who must try to uphold the Christian Christmas story without offending anyone with a 'competing belief'. Between an immaculate conception and a son of God who will eventually come back from the dead, the Christian Christmas story has plenty of implausible aspects, too. A cynic, or an atheist, might argue they were equally fanciful.
In the wake of the fateful sermon, teachers at Lee-on-the-Solent school wrote to parents reassuring them that "all stories and legends around Christmas" were respected, adding that "your own family beliefs are what are important and just as valid as Christian Christmas story".
Alan Smith, the Bishop of St Albans, says he tries to toe a diplomatic line: "What I've always done when people ask me about Father Christmas is to say 'let me tell you how this all started'.
"The origin [of Santa] is St Nicholas," he says. "What I've always said is 'let me tell you about the real Father Christmas, who is St Nicholas and the wonderful story. I'm not going to go round trying to upset children at Christmas, so that's why I talk about the wonderful example of St Nicholas of Myra who is celebrated through the whole of Europe.
"He hears of a very poor family where the girls are being sold into slavery and he throws gold coins through their window so they don't have to be sold. Which is why we give gold coins - those chocolate gold coins. That's the origin of it."
Not everyone shares this tactful approach. Last week, Dr Joseph Millum, a philosophy lecturer at the University of St Andrews, said that parents who insisted Father Christmas was real were "parenting by lying."
"I believe that telling your child that Santa really exists is unethical," he wrote in The Conversation. "It's manipulative, breaches their trust and may cause worry and upset for benefits that can be provided without lying."
Many readers agreed with him. "I can't see the point of lying about how the world is," said Mike Richardson. "Father Christmas being real is not something anyone would consider if it wasn't told to them. I didn't do it for mine."
David Lewis agreed. "It's undoubtedly a minor form of dishonesty and betrayal. I have never felt comfortable with these particular lies to children."
"We adopted two babies, and I always felt a special responsibility," he tells me. "I always felt very uncomfortable about saying anything to either of them which I knew to be untrue. It also makes me think of parents who tell their young children about their certainty of the existence of God when they themselves are not 100 per cent sure.
"It's perfectly alright for children to suspend disbelief and disport themselves in grottos with elves and pixies, provided they are conscious they are suspending disbelief," he adds. "I think by and large kids are a lot brighter than we think they are and they know what's going on."
Wherever you stand on the Christian story, surely the spirit of getting together and giving to your fellow man is a better thing to believe in than a plump chimney trespasser.
Our eldest child is four and a half; I am not quite Scrooge-like enough to sit down and tell her specifically that Father Christmas is made up. Equally, I will never tell her it is true if she asks. It is a family tradition.