A bishop in Sicily got into trouble a few weeks before Christmas this year for telling children that Santa Claus “does not exist”.

Shall I tell you something? He doesn’t. And didn’t. Nor do the reindeer, the white beard, the toy factory in the Arctic, and the team of hard-working dwarves. The original Santa, St Nicholas of Myra – who traditionally lived between 15 March 270 and 6 December 343 – almost certainly did exist, although we do not know much about him and we can be reasonably certain that he did not plunge down other people’s chimneys last week, chanting “Ho. Ho. Ho.” (He is said to have pushed bags of money anonymously through the windows of the poor.)

And at some point, usually somewhere between the ages of about eight and twelve, the “belief” in Father Christmas evaporates. I do not think that I have ever met anyone over fifteen who still believes in Father Christmas in any literal sense, but equally I have never met an adult who resents being “lied to” as a child on this topic, nor found anyone damaged by the story. This is very different from many of the lies that children are told, directly or indirectly by the adults in their lives: that it is better to be white than black, better to be male than female, better to be rich than poor, better to be straight than gay, better to be a grown-up than a child.