The Santa Claus/St. Nicholas mythos can be an excellent, ready-made pedagogy for introducing children to a liturgical worldview.
Discussion
Or you could just not lie to you kids.
Skill issue
Telling your kids some of the gifts are "from St. Nicholas" is true, in a similar way that saying all of our gifts are ultimately from God is true.
If we give gifts in imitation of the example of the good bishop of Myra, we are giving gifts "from St. Nicholas." As the kids get older they'll learn that the saint's example is one they can imitate, too.
Actually, I had it in my head that I would buy very nice gifts for my children on their birthday to truly celebrate them, but tiny meaningless things for Christmas so they can concentrate on the reason for the season. To be fair, mine would have enough aunts and uncles that they won't miss out.
I think that's a good way to do it!
The ideal for Christmas, I think is to teach kids to be generous themselves in imitation of God's generosity to us. So you want to find a way to shift the attention away from themselves on outwards in charity.
My dad was always honest. He said he was too selfish to let someone else take credit for what he bought me and that some parents lie to their kids about Santa. I was always gonna say something similar. But I would add to let the other school children believe the lie if the meet some who do, coz at nine I tried to tell my friend that her dad lied to her and there was no Santa, and that went over about as well as you can imagine. 😅🤣
That's an interesting take; not letting someone else take credit for your gifts.
Personally, I think the anonymity in gift-giving is part of what makes it so good. It's giving without expecting even recognition in return.
Alternative take: Santa Claus is a really good way to give children their first disconcerting rug-pull, and introduce them to a "people in authority lie all the time" worldview.
Happily I didn't even have to lie to my kids myself, they got to watch society do it in real time.
Elf on the Shelf introduces them to the surveillance state and good OPSEC.