I'm not thrilled about the societal emphasis on gifts to make children happy, but otherwise, as a parent of two young kids, I am grateful for Santa Claus.
Santa Claus is a perfect, uncomplicated person that also loves your children. I think it's a good thing to give children the impression that love for them extends beyond the family; someone out there with power, resources and magic also loves them, personally. The gift they get from Santa is the 'evidence' of this love and this gift is usually the best gift they receive -- more carefully chosen and grander than even the gifts their parents give them. I view the phenomenon of Santa Claus as an outlet for society to express their views and hopes about generosity. Santa Claus is a model of what it means to be generous, and we all feel more generous when we channel his personality to pretend that his is real. Possibly, we teach our kids to be generous for later. (Sometimes people are generous when they've been generously treated, and sometimes they feel entitled instead, I don't know why.)
I don't see it as a deception about whether Santa Claus 'exists'-- for the first time on the other side of the conspiracy, I'm amazed by how extensively society supports the realization of Santa Claus. A culture that does this, especially at such a grand scale, really does want him to exist to love the children. The collusion at all levels, and especially the way parents reserve the best present to be from Santa, shows that Santa Claus is fitting some set of societal and parental needs. I'm sure a well-researched, thought-out social science essay could write a lot of things that I am only half-aware of, but without fully understanding why, I personally feel that 'Santa Claus' is one of the most spectacular ways that society provides support to parents.
The deception of Santa Claus isn't that he isn't a real man. (He's more real than I ever thought he was.) The myth is that all children are loved and cared for. In my opinion, the more disillusioned my kids feel when they find out about that myth, the better. As a society, we think 'Santa Claus' should visit every child (which is why there are toy drives) and we hope that every parent wants special and good moments for their children. If you're a parent that doesn't go along with Santa Claus because you don't want to lie to them, then you are caring about their well-being. The bogey-men here, if they exist, are parents that couldn't be bothered to make a special time for their kids.
(By the way, this comment was indubitably strongly influenced by this thread.)
Thanks for the thoughtful answer. Those are good explanations why people want to do it - but I could use those same arguments to justify teaching children religion.
I've long entertained a dubious regard for the practice of lying to children about the existence of Santa Claus. Parents might claim that it serves to make children's lives more magical and exciting, but as a general rule, children are adequately equipped to create fantasies of their own without their parents' intervention. The two reasons I suspect rest at the bottom line are adherence to tradition, and finding it cute to see one's children believing ridiculous things.
Personally, I considered this to be a rather indecent way to treat one's own children, and have sometimes wondered whether a large proportion of conspiracy theorists owe their origins to the realization that practically all the adults in the country really are conspiring to deceive children for no tangible benefit. However, since I began frequenting this site, I've been exposed to the alternate viewpoint that this realization may be good for developing rationalists, because it provides children with the experience of discovering that they hold beliefs which are wrong and absurd, and that they must reject them.
So, how did the Santa deception affect you personally? How do you think your life might have been different without it? If your parents didn't do it to you, what are your impressions on the experience of not being lied to when most other children are?
Also, I promise to upvote anyone who links to an easy to register for community of conspiracy theorists where they would not be averse to being asked the same question.