Anybody Want To Weigh In On Christmas?

So, here's our dilemma, John doesn't think we should tell our kids that Santa brings all the presents, or maybe even any of the presents. He thinks Santa is a big lie, and that it's bad to tell such a big lie to our kids. He also thinks that our kids should understand that our friends and family (and us!) paid hard earned money for these gifts, and they should be appreciative of these people, and not Santa. And as crazy as that all sounds, after I have had years to digest it, I can see where he is coming from. And, so, so far, Charlotte has no clue, but Cecilia knows what Santa looks like, and gets excited about him, but isn't quite sure why yet. I try to stress baby Jesus, and his birthday. I know that I do hate the materialistic form that Christmas has taken, and would like to somehow not have too much of that in this household. We have adopted a family for Christmas, and although Cecilia doesn't understand much of that, I makes me feel better, and I hope one day she will understand that not everyone has a Christmas like we do now. Heck, we might not even have Christmas in the the future like we do now. So, the other day when she asked about Santa, I started telling Cecilia that we give presents to each other, and to others to celebrate and remember Jesus' birth. I can't flat out tell her the truth, for no other reason than to protect all her little friends and cousins. I don't think Santa is the enemy, I think St. Nick did amazing things, and Santa is a modern day form of him.

All that being said, I'm a little confused about where to go from here. I'm sure you're all thinking they'll miss the Christmas magic, and that's a valid point, but I'm not sure they will... How exactly will they miss the magic? Isn't the magic of Christmas that Jesus was born? And on to more concrete questions, is it ok to wrap presents in front of them? In thinking that we're telling them that we give presents, wrapping presents should be ok. But what if they see me wrap a present to Norah and Norah thinks it's from Santa? Will they automatically think that Santa brought them? Will they ask me in the years to come which presents exactly were from Santa? If we don't say yes or no to the idea of Santa directly to their face will they still believe, or be left somewhere confused in the middle?

Unchartered territory over here...