I felt like it was important to get over the Santa Claus issue really early. I told my kids our family is Jewish. We're actually not, but they're too dumb to notice that we don't participate in any Jewish cultural activities or follow any Jewish customs. When they got older, they asked why Santa Claus doesn't come to Jewish kids. I told them that Santa Claus was Vice Chancellor of the Nazi Party in the 30s and 40s, and he escaped to the North Pole after the war to escape prosecution for war crimes. He doesn't come to Jewish kids because he hates them. They accepted that.

It finally occurred to my 16 year old to wonder why he's not circumcised if we're Jewish, so I told him it's because we came to America from the Soviet Union. He's too dumb to do the math. I have his surgery scheduled for the day before school starts, so that should handle that.