That's a good daggum question. Once you tell you're kids this, its hard to get them off the Santa Claus fix.

I don't think of it as a lie, no more than I  thought any other fairy tales to be a 'lie' they are stories and we are entitled to them. As to what I told my children, though I am sure that he does not remember it, I told my son of a more Africanized figure, I named Yeshu Jinn. I did find the idea of a sole white man doing all that for everyone in the world. So I saw no harm in culturalizing the idea of Santa Claus, I bet you would like the story if you read it. Just think, a jinn who lives in the shifting sands of the Sahara, a caravan of toys. It makes sense to me, or for Pac-Asians some spirit on a dragon.

I'll put the story here for you (even though you are a non-believer)

As a tiny child of 4 or 5 i think i did believe in Santa, but after that, I would go shopping for xmas gifts with my mom and also helped her wrap them so i knew she had saved up for the gifts and it wasn't santa bringing them.  I liked the fact that it was my mom and dad giving us these gifts instead of some stranger.  I just read he Yeshu Jinn story and it is beautiful.