I am a father, and I have grew up with Santa when I was younger. Now,
I am looking at this website: www.SantaThePenPal.com, and I wonder
whether I should order one for my child?

Please tell me, is it okay to do so?

Quite apart from the issue of whether encouraging belief in Santa is a
good thing, there's this: if I had a young child, I would be leery of
sending personal data about him or her to total strangers on the
Internet.

That is a serious consideration.

Very personally, I feel that Christmas should be a family occasion
(and, of course, a religious one, if that is your feeling). It should
not be supported by commercially produced items pretending to be
personal. I think children should know that their presents are from
their parents, an expression of their love.
Why give Santa credit?

But if you want to, that is your decision, of course.  I just wouldn't
commercialize it, or support such a website's business.

if you're asking whether it will do lasting damage to the kid's
psyche, no it won't.

however, if you look closely at the web site, you will see that the
example letters are written by someone who's command of the english
language leaves a little something to be desired.

pinkfreud has a valid comment as well.  one solution: you, or a
researcher, would have to look into it yourselves, because i'm just
working off my memory, but i believe that you can send a letter you
wrote yourself "from santa" to your kid, already stamped, inside a
bigger envelope to the post master at north pole, alaska, and they
will mail your letter back to you with a north pole post mark.  i
imagine googling "letter from santa" and weeding out all the ads from
companies similar to the one you describe would get you what you want.

nevermind, i just found one myself: 
http://www.usps.com/communications/news/press/2004/pr04_087.htm

-cab

myoarin,

as far as the commercialization of christmas goes, hasn't that ship
pretty much already sailed?

-cab

Personally I do not consider lying to kids a good idea.

Unless you want to breed cynicism and distrust 
- which is quite an interesting concept.

I don't believe sending letters via some kind of website is a good
idea, it seems very commercial. However, as a child my parents
encouraged me to hand write letters to Santa and they "posted" them
and Santa (my parents) would then reply back. As well as being fun for
your child it is also a good way to find out what they are wishing
for.

telling kids there is a santa claus is no more ?lying to kids? than
reading them fiction, or telling them their pictures of purple frogs
eating weird orange things are beautiful, or telling them the
blackened pancakes they just made taste great.

no child on the planet has become cynical or distrustful because they
were lead to believe that there was a santa.

-cab

You can also send a letter here:

SANTA CLAUS
NORTH POLE H0H 0H0
CANADA

Santa will reply, at least, if you're in Canada. Don't know about US
or Intl letters, though.

I respectfully disagree with Barneca. The Santa Claus deception does
frequently lead, as Frde pointed out so well, to cynicism and distrust
-- or, at the very least, to a strong disappointment when the kid
finally learns the truth, and the very anguishing feeling that parents
are not so sincere and reliable as they were supposed to be. There's a
huge difference between reading a kid fiction and the Santa deception:
in the former case they KNOW it is fiction -- in the latter they
don't. The other two examples are completely different, they are
rather comparable with courtesy uses, like when one wholeheartedly
thanks a gift one really doesn't like, or when one congratulates an
actor friend after attending a performance one didn't really like, in
order not to offend the other person's feeling.

More to the point of the question, I stick by what my colleague
PinkFreud, Myoarin and Dawacky1 said.

Just my two cents.

Guillermo

Expanding on my last comment on the Santa issue itself, a different
thing is the very frequent situation that occurs when kids themselves
spontaneously play the Santa game. At a certain age (typically three
to five), even though the kid has been told that parents buy the
presents, they may chose to play the whole fiction. If this happens,
it is nice that parents just follow the game -- as opposed to point
out to the kid that Santa doesn't exist -- in that particular age of
life (characterized by magical thinking) kids can navigate between
reality and fiction in a very dynamic way -- as long as they are free
to turn the switch -- i.e., having the information at hand about what
actually is fiction and what is not.

I think letters from Santa are wonderful. I don't see the harm in it,
can't imagine anything bad about it. I believed in Santa till I was 10
years old and remember the day I found out Santa was "not real." In
fact, I believe it could be detrimental to a child's mental health to
NOT believe in Santa. Imagine being the only kid at school to not
believe! The myth of Santa has permeated our society to such a degree
that to be a child and not believe must be a very lonely place. Would
you tell your child to LIE to his/her friends so as not to ruin it for
them, or just encourage them to become friends with the Jehovah's
Witnesses?

You can get a "real" letter from Santa from the City of North Pole, Alaska:
http://www.northpolealaska.com/ (Click "Santa Claus House")
http://www.santaclaushouse.com/

Sheesh, give a tradition a break. If something like this damaged kid's
emotionally, well, then the overwhelming majority of American children
need therapy. I went through several months of therapy as a child when
my parents divorced, and 18 months of intense therapy as an adult--and
I am here to tell you that the subject of Santa was NEVER discussed.

Sign me,
A Believer

There is no Santa Claus??????????????

Steph53 ( shocked )

You can snicker if you wish. But, cynicism and distrust was my exact
response to learning I had been lied to.  Do not anyone assume your
own response to something is the only correct or likely response.

As a result of my own reaction, I never told my kids there was a Santa
Claus.  I never lied to them about anything else, either.

That has been thirty years ago now, so I don't remember exactly how I
dealt with it when their mother did tell them about Santa Claus and
they asked me.  But, as adults, they commented how good it made them
feel to know I had never lied to them about anything.  And, they
enjoyed the presents.

Yes, when I was about five I set a trap for 'Santa', made from an old
alarm clock. I caught my father.

Possibly that is what made me cynical.