profuse but not false praise?  I always tell my son he is doing a good job when he does stuff for himself.  

I wrote a whole Toastmaster's speech about Santa Claus.  I don't understand why people regard that kind of practice as a lie.  Are we so out of touch with our own mystic tendencies that we have to hate on folklore now?  Nobody's under any obligation to teach their kids about Santa.  But if you're not giving them any traditions like that, you're culturally impoverishing them.

Why must everything be so literal with people? I think myths help fuel a child's imagination; it opens them to possibility.

Not only do I lie to them, I often just make stuff up.  It's none of their damned business who ate their hallowe'en candy.

i used to tell my son we did not have enough money. then he would parrot that back to me and i realized that it was teaching him a poverty consciousness.

so now, instead, i talk to him about how we need to make wide choices about what we buy. we may have the money, most definitely for a two dollar toy, but we should choose to save that and spend it on something more worthwhile.

not sure if it is getting through to him, but in time i hope it does.

as for calling up santa, i totally do that. shoot me. that time of year is stressful and any extra tricks i have i use!

I've made a few calls to Santa.  Or, sometimes, I just implied that Santa KNEW...no call necessary.

And remember...kids are often very literal.  One of my son's favorite stories is to tell how he really believed that he was going to grow a long tail and big ears when I told him that was what would happen if he ate cat food.

Especially from one particular friend who told all her kids that if they swallowed their gum, they'd fart bubbles.

Also, when her daughter was about 1 1/2, she learned how to unbuckle herself and stand up in her high chair and the grocery cart. No amount of cajoling, extra restraints or punishment fixed the problem. So the mom finally told her that if she did it one more time, monsters were going to come carry her away. Problem solved.

I didn't know whether to be horrified or filled with admiration, but I totally understood her desperation.

In our house, we make a distinction between telling stories and lying to achieve a dishonest goal. This really came home when my daughter was upset at a boy in her class who 'told lies' all the time. It turns out he was claiming his dad drove a Ferrari and was a baseball player, etc. What 6-year-old boy hasn't made up some fantasy about their father? We explained that it was really harmless storytelling and he wasn't a horrible person!

but my mother never made the distinction between "harmless" lies, and "harmful" lies.  She didn't stop when we were 7 either.  It taught me how to be a ceaseless liar in my youth.  It took an epiphany with an impact comparable to being hit with a falling piano for me to change tack.
That is all I have to think of when I feel like giving the short, dishonest answer.
We had to pick out our words very carefully when we had to euthanize our Rottweiler due to lymphosarcoma.  My eldest was only 2, and VERY attached to that dog.  We decided that although death may be an unattainable concept for a two year old, that we would present it to her honestly anyway.  
Then my mother watches a movie with her that shows a dinosaur skeleton and she says "Ooooh, he's taking a nap!".
Guh?

I read the nicest quote about Santa from a man who designs Christmas decorations: "I think of Santa as more of a concept of joy and happiness in unexpected places."  This has stuck with me for some reason; I guess it tells me that I could believe in Santa forever if I want.

Or maybe I got that from my mom.  When I was 7 or 8 and struggling with the concept of the Tooth Fairy, I asked my mom if it was real.  She said, "It's real as long as you believe it."  That was what I needed to hear, I guess, because it let me off the hook without being traumatic.

Of course, a few years later, when I really didn't believe, my mother said, "Look, if you want to keep getting gifts from Santa, I'd stay quiet about it around your younger brothers if I were you."  That was all the bribing I needed!

At least not direct lies.  But I often use avoidance and redirection to skirt the truth.  I talk about Santa as though he were real, but when asked point blank whether Santa is "really real" I gave a long and convoluted discourse about the stories people like to believe in. I think he forgot the question by the end; in any case he still believes.

Some of our best dinner discussions with my 20 and 22 year old daughter and son concern Santa, Easter bunny, etc. and what they believed and how we as parents handled it all.  Lots of times kids figure it all out very early but go along with it to humor US the PARENTS!  My daughter was like that.

But we discovered we unknowingly created a fear in our daughter.  Around here (Seattle) we have a seafood restaurant (Ivar's) that used dancing clams to advertise.  On TV you'd see these giant clams with human legs dancing and then in local parades, people would wear the dancing clam costumes.  Our daughter thought they were real.  I am certain my hubby told her they were real.  I mean she'd figured out Santa so what's the harm, right?

Only after she grew up did I learn she was terrified of the dancing clams and feared she would see them when we went to the beach!  

I had no idea.